Cesare Claudio Prandelli (born 19 August 1957 in
Orzinuovi,
province of Brescia) is an
Italian football coach and former player. He is currently the manager of the
Italy national football team.
Playing career
Prandelli, a midfielder, started his playing career at
Cremonese in 1974. He then moved to
Atalanta in 1978, and then
Juventus in 1979. He played six seasons with Juventus, winning the
Serie A championship three times. He returned to Atalanta in 1985, where he ended his career in 1990. In total, Prandelli played 197 Serie A matches.
Coaching career
Prandelli started his managing career as youth team coach for
Atalanta. He coached Atalanta's youth squad with excellent results from 1990 to 1997, except for a seven-months parenthesis, from November 1993 to June 1994, in which he served as caretaker for the first team, then relegated to
Serie B. After a poor
1997–98 Serie A campaign as
Lecce head coach ended in a sacking in January 1998, Prandelli headed
Hellas Verona for two seasons, leading the
gialloblu to an immediate promotion to
Serie A, and then to a very good ninth place the next year. He later spent two years with
Parma, where he fully reached national glory.
Starting the 2004–05 season for
AS Roma, he left the team because of personal problems involving his wife, with her being seriously ill.
Prandelli joined
Fiorentina as manager in the summer of 2005. His first season in Tuscany proved to be a huge success, as...
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