Luciano Spalletti

Luciano Spalletti (Italian pronunciation: [luˈtʃaːno spalˈletti]; born 7 March 1959) is an Italian football manager and a former player. He is currently in charge of Serie A club Roma.

Born in Certaldo, Province of Florence, Spalletti played for Serie C teams such as Entella, Spezia, Viareggio and Empoli.

Early career

Spalletti's early career in management led him to struggling Empoli, where he was head coach between July 1993 and June 1998. Spalletti led the Tuscan side to two consecutive promotions from Serie C1 to the top-flight Serie A. Spalletti also spent time at Sampdoria from July 1998 to June 1999 and Venezia from July 1999 to October 1999.

Spalletti had two spells as head coach at Udinese. The first spell was between March 2001 and June 2001. The second spell was between July 2002 and June 2005. There was a spell at Ancona in between spells. It was at Udinese where he really began to make an impact as a manager. During the 2004–05 season, Spalletti guided Udinese to a sensational fourth-placed finish in Serie A, exceeding expectations and securing a spot in the UEFA Champions League. Spalletti became coach of Roma in June 2005.

Roma

Spalletti with Roma in 2009

Such success for a traditionally unexceptional side with limited resources attracted the attention of Roma. The capital side had come off a disappointing season, in which four different coaches had spells in charge of the club. Spalletti was offered the task of attempting to bring order to this chaotic side. After an uninspiring first half of the 2005–06 season, he changed the team's tactics to suit a more offensive playing style, rather than a defensive-minded system. Spalletti's favoured formation was the 4–2–3–1 system, which used four defenders, two defensive midfielders, two wingers (both sides of the 3), one attacking midfielder, and one striker (Francesco Totti, who typically functioned also as an attacking midfielder in previous seasons; as such, the team played without any real striker, as Totti occupied what later came to be described as a false-9 role. This system proved effective for Roma upon its introduction during the 2005–06 season, as on 26 February 2006, Roma broke the Serie A record for most consecutive wins with a 2–0 victory over Lazio, following an 11-match winning streak; as a result, Roma climbed from 15th place to 5th place in the table. By the end of the season, however, Roma failed to reach fourth place, therefore failing to qualify for the Champions League. Spalletti did manage to help Roma reach the 2006 Coppa Italia Final, but ultimately lost out on the title to Internazionale. Nonetheless, as a result of the 2006 Serie A match-fixing scandal, Roma qualified for the 2006–07 UEFA Champions League, as league champions Juventus were relegated, while Fiorentina and Milan both received point deductions for their involvement.

At the end of 2006, Spalletti was elected Serie A Coach of the Year and, in the following months, led Roma until the Champions League quarter-final after a 2–0 victory over Lyon at the Stade Gerland in the first knockout round. The team, however, succeeded in becoming the first team to defeat Roberto Mancini's Internazionale in all competitions that year, emerging with a 1–3 result at the San Siro, a match that the Nerazzurri had to win to mathematically claim the 2007 Scudetto against the only credible rival they had in the championship. Roma would also win the 2007 Coppa Italia Final against Inter, with an aggregate result of 7–4; a resounding 6–2 in the first leg in Rome and followed by a narrow 2–1 defeat in Milan. It was the first important trophy in Spalletti's career, who only had won a Coppa Italia di Serie C with Empoli. But he was yet to add another piece of silverware to his cabinet, as Roma would again defeat Inter 0–1 in Milan in the opening fixture of the 2007–08 season to steal their Supercoppa Italiana crown.

In the 2007–08 Champions League first knockout round, Spalletti's Roma team became the first Italian team to defeat Real Madrid over two legs (2–1 in both ties in Rome and Madrid) and consequently also became the first European side to record two victories over Real Madrid in their Santiago Bernabéu home ground. In a repeat of the previous season's quarter-final, Roma were again eliminated from the Champions League by eventual winners Manchester United. They did, however, succeed in their defence of the Coppa Italia, once again defeating Scudetto winners Inter in the 2008 Coppa Italia Final — a single match which Roma won 2–1.

In the 2008–09 season, Spalletti faced a very difficult season with Roma. At the end of the season, the team only managed to qualify for the Europa League with a sixth-place position in the league, after a very struggling initial period that left the giallorossi in the bottom half of the league for the first part of the Serie A season.

The new season saw Spalletti struggling with a limited squad, that was weakened further by the sale of Alberto Aquilani to Liverpool, and compounded by serious financial problems for the club. Roma started the season by taking part in two 2009–10 UEFA Europa League qualifying rounds, both easily won against Gent (10–2 on aggregate) and Košice (10–4 on aggregate). However, another poor start in the 2009–10 Serie A season, with two consecutive defeats (2–3 to Genoa and 1–3, at home, to Juventus) prompted Spalletti to resign on 1 September 2009.

Zenit

Spalletti with Zenit in 2012

In December 2009, it was confirmed Spalletti would join Russian Premier League club Zenit Saint Petersburg on a three-year deal, replacing interim coach Anatoly Davydov with Italian coaches Daniele Baldini, Marco Domenichini and Alberto Bartali also joining the Russian club. The Board of Zenit wanted him to return the Premier League title, win the Russian Cup and go through the group stage of the Champions League in his first year.

Zenit won the Russian Cup on 16 May 2010, beating Sibir Novosibirsk in the final (having beaten Volga Tver in the quarter-final and Amkar Perm in the semi-final). After 16 games in the 2010 Premier League, with 12 wins and four draws, under Spalletti Zenit have obtained 40 points. This set a new Russian Premier League record for most points won at that stage of the campaign. In the summer transfer window of 2010, Spalletti made his first signings: forward Aleksandr Bukharov and midfielder Sergei Semak both came from Rubin Kazan while defenders Aleksandar Luković and Bruno Alves joined from Udinese and Porto respectively. On 25 August 2010, Zenit lost its first game under Spalletti to French side Auxerre and failed to advance to the Champions League group stage, though Zenit moved on to play in UEFA Europa League.

On 3 October 2010, Zenit beat Spartak Nalchik to set another Russian Premier League record for most consecutive games going undefeated, with 21 games since the start of the league season. On 27 October 2010, Zenit suffered its first defeat of the season at the hands of rival club Spartak Moscow, seven games short of finishing the championship undefeated. On 14 November, Zenit defeated Rostov and, two games prior to the end of the season, claimed the championship title, the first of Spalletti's coaching career.

Additionally, Zenit went through to the group stage of the UEFA Europa League in first place to the round of 16 stage, where they defeated Swiss club Young Boys. On 6 March 2011, Zenit defeated CSKA Moscow in the Russian Super Cup, winning Spalletti his third Russian trophy. On 17 March 2011, Zenit lost in Europa League to Twente 2–3 aggregate in the quarter-finals.

In the 2011–12 UEFA Champions League, Zenit started in group stage drawn into group G alongside Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk and APOEL. On 6 December 2011, Zenit finished the group stage in second place and for the first time in club's history qualified for the spring knockout phase of Champions League. In the first leg against Benfica, Zenit won 3–2 at home through two goals from Roman Shirokov and one from Sergei Semak. In the second leg, however, Zenit lost 2–0 and was eliminated from the competition. On 9 February, Spalletti signed a three-and-a-half-year contract extension to stay at Zenit until 2015. In April 2012, Zenit won their second-straight Russian Championship after beating Dynamo Moscow. After three trophy-less seasons, Spalletti was sacked on 10 March 2014.

Return to Roma

Spalletti was appointed manager of Roma for his second spell on 13 January 2016 after ex-manager Rudi García was sacked due to poor team performances. On 21 February, Totti publicly criticised Spalletti due to his own lack of playing-time since returning from injury; as a result, he was subsequently dropped by Spalletti for Roma's 5–0 win over Palermo, with the decision causing an uproar among the fans and in the media. After their initial disagreements, Spalletti began to use Totti as an immediate impact substitute, which proved to be an effective decision, as the Roma number 10 rediscovered his form, and contributed with four goals and an assist after coming off the bench in five consecutive Serie A games; as a result, Spalletti was able to lead Roma from a mid-table spot to a third-place finish in Serie A, clinching the UEFA Champions League play-off spot.

Empoli

• Serie C1 play-offs (1): 1995–96
• Serie B promotion (1): 1996–97

Roma

• Coppa Italia (2): 2006–07, 2007–08
• Supercoppa Italiana (1): 2007

Zenit

• Russian Premier League (2): 2010, 2011–12
• Russian Cup (1): 2009–10
• Russian Super Cup (1): 2011

Individual

• Serie A Coach of the Year (1): 2005–06, 2006–07
• Panchina d'Oro (1): 2004–05

• "Ibra re del calcio italiano Lo segue a ruota Del Piero" (in Italian). La Gazzetta dello Sport. 19 January 2009. Retrieved 21 December 2015. 
• "Albo "Panchina d'Oro"" (in Italian). Alleniamo.com. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 25 April 2016. 

As of 22 January 2017