Luciano Spalletti

Infobox Football biography
playername = Luciano Spalletti
fullname = Luciano Spalletti
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1959|3|7
cityofbirth = Certaldo
countryofbirth = Italy
currentclub = AS Roma
position = Manager
youthyears =
youthclubs =
years = 1978-1986 1986-1990 1990-1991 1991-1993
clubs = Entella Spezia Viareggio Empoli
caps(goals) = ? (?) 120 (7) 29 (1) 53 (3)
manageryears = 1994 1994-1995 1995-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000 2001 2001-2002 2002-2005 2005-
managerclubs = Empoli ("caretaker") Empoli ("youth team") Empoli Sampdoria Venezia Udinese Ancona Udinese AS Roma

Luciano Spalletti (born 7 March 1959 in Certaldo, Florence) is an Italian football coach who currently manages A.S. Roma in Serie A.

Coaching career

A former football player for Serie C teams such as Empoli and Spezia, Spalletti's early career in management led him to struggling Empoli, where he lead the Tuscanian side to two consecutive promotions from Serie C1 to Serie A. However, it was at Udinese where he really began to make an impact as a manager. During the 2004-2005 season, Spalletti guided Udinese to a sensational fourth-placed finish in Serie A, exceeding expectations and securing a spot in the UEFA Champions League. Such success for a traditionally unexceptional side with limited resources attracted the attention of A.S. 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 2005-2006 season, he changed the team's tactics to attacking rather than defensive. On 26 February 2006, Roma broke the Serie A record for consecutive wins (11) with a 2-0 victory over SS Lazio. However, by the end of the season, Roma failed to reach 4th place, therefore failing to qualify for the UEFA Champions League. Spalletti also took Roma into the Coppa Italia final against Inter during the 2005-2006 season but lost. However, Roma qualified for the 2006-2007 UEFA Champions League, since Juventus was relegated and Fiorentina and AC Milan received point deductions, all as a result of the Serie A match-fixing scandal.

Spalletti's favoured formation is the 4-2-3-1 system, where he uses 4 defenders, 2 defensive midfielders, 2 wingers (both sides of the 3), 1 attacking midfielder, and 1 striker. This system proved effective upon its introduction during the 2005-2006 season for A.S Roma. As a result, the team climbed the charts from 15th to 5th place by the end of the season. During that time, Roma also went on an 11-match winning streak.

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 Olympique Lyon at Stade Gerland in the first knockout round. In the quarter-final, despite a promising 2-1 win in the first leg, Roma crumbled incredibly to a 7-1 annihilation at the hands of Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United.

The team, however, succeeded in becoming the first team to defeat Roberto Mancini's Inter Milan in all competitions that year, emerging with a 1-3 result in the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, a match that the "nerazzurri" had to win to mathematically claim the 2007 Scudetto against the only credible rival they had in the championship.

They would also win the Coppa Italia against Inter Milan, 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 2007-08 to steal their Supercoppa Italiana crown.

In the 2007/2008 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.

On June 4, Spalletti was linked to the manager's job at Chelsea FC