Carlo Cudicini

Football player infobox
playername = Carlo Cudicini


fullname = Carlo Cudicini
nickname =
height = height|m=1.86
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1973|9|6
cityofbirth = Milan
countryofbirth = Italy
currentclub = Chelsea
clubnumber = 23
position = Goalkeeper
youthyears =
youthclubs =
years = 1992–1995
1993–1994
1995–1996
1996–1997
1997–2000
1999–2000
2000–
clubs = AC Milan → Como (loan) Prato Lazio Castel di Sangro → Chelsea (loan) Chelsea
caps(goals) = 000 (0) 006(0) 030 (0) 001 (0) 014 (0) 001 (0) 140 (0)
nationalyears = 1990–1992 1993
nationalteam = Italy U-18 Italy U-21
nationalcaps(goals) = 020 (0) 001 (0)
pcupdate = 19:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
ntupdate =

Carlo Cudicini (born September 6 1973 in Milan) is an Italian goalkeeper. He is the son of former A.C. Milan goalkeeper Fabio Cudicini and grandson of Ponziana Trieste defender Guglielmo Cudicini (deceased). He currently plays for Chelsea, whenever he plays he is welcomed generously by the Chelsea fans who chant "Carlo" whenever he makes a save. He also regularly appears on English television to provide expert analysis on matches shown from Serie A.

Club career

Early career

Cudicini found it hard to follow in his father's footsteps, only making 2 appearances for AC Milan (1991–95) in the Champions League and none in Serie A. He was loaned to Como for a season in the 1993–94 season, and was subsequently transferred to Prato in 1995, and then to Lazio in 1996 where he suffered a wrist injury, and consequently only made one senior appearance. He then moved to Castel di Sangro in 1997, where his injury problems persisted, and was sold to Chelsea for a fee of £160,000 in 1999, where his career took off.

Chelsea

1999–2003

Despite a brief challenge from Mark Bosnich, Cudicini took over from Ed De Goey almost instantly, and retained his first team place with a string of excellent performances.

He was voted Chelsea's Player of the Year for the 2001–02 season by fans, reflecting the value he added to a team struggling for consistency. His cause was helped by a game against Liverpool in December 2001, which Chelsea won 4–0, during which he kept out an excellent shot from Steven Gerrard and a penalty taken by Gary McAllister. Incidentally, Chelsea beat Liverpool to fourth place in the league the following season, thus taking the final qualifying berth for the UEFA Champions League.

Cudicini was recognised as the best goalkeeper in the Premier League in the 2002–2003 season, when he won the ITV "Golden Gloves" Premiership Goalkeeper of the Season award.

After a bright start to the 2003–04 season, the old injury problems experienced in his Lazio days came back, leaving him unable to carry on his success from last season and unable to play for a large portion of the season. His value to the team was highlighted when Chelsea's replacement goalkeeper Marco Ambrosio failed to effectively fit into the first team, leading to Chelsea's exit from the Champions League at the semi final stage to Monaco.

2004–05

The 2004–05 season saw the arrival of new manager José Mourinho, and more crucially, the signing of Petr Čech, who claimed that he would push Cudicini for a first team place. As a result of Čech's excellent form, Cudicini was relegated to become back-up goalkeeper. As a result, he missed out on a Premier League winner's medal in the two Chelsea championship-winning seasons due to not meeting the required number of appearances.

2005–06

At the end of a steady 2005–06 season, Cudicini had saved six of the 12 penalties he had faced while between the posts for Chelsea, furthering his reputation as an excellent penalty stopper.

2006–07

After Petr Cech was named in the FIFPro and Champions League 2005–06 team of the season, there was a great deal of speculation about Cudicini's future at Chelsea, leading to Cudicini release a statement confirming that he was comfortable at Chelsea, and hoped to help the team capture its first ever Champions League title. He silenced rumours that he was looking for a return to Italy when he signed an extension to his Chelsea contract in February 2006. He is now contracted to Chelsea until the summer of 2009.

On October 14 2006, in a league game against Reading, he was knocked unconscious and had to be stretchered off the pitch whilst wearing an oxygen mask after coming on as a substitute for first-choice goalkeeper Čech. Čech was believed to be sidelined for up to a year, leaving Cudicini as the most senior goalkeeper available at Chelsea. However, even though he had fully recovered and returned to training, Cudicini faced a battle to dislodge third-choice goalkeeper Henrique Hilario, who had been playing well in Čech's and Cudicini's absence. After Hilario conceded four goals in two matches Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho decided to put Cudicini in goal against Aston Villa in their fourth round match of the Carling Cup. Chelsea won that match 4–0 and Cudicini took over goalkeeping duties from Hilario.

However, since returning to action in Chelsea's 2–0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield in late January 2007, Cech has kept both Cudicini and Hilario out of the first team. He made his 200th appearance for the club (in all competitions) against West Ham United on December 1 2007. Cudicini's lack of action for Chelsea since 2004, and his reluctance to move to a new club, saw him described as "the world's most unambitious footballer" by "The Daily Telegraph" in 2008. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/01/20/sfnroy120.xml How Houllier shattered Anelka's Anfield dream] , "The Daily Telegraph", 20 January 2008]

2007–08

Cudicini began the new campaign once again as second-choice to Petr Cech, but a string of injuries to the Czech saw Cudicini feature 19 times in all competitions. His first appearance of the season was in a Carling Cup game against Hull City in which he kept a clean sheet in a 4-0 win. He played against Leicester City in a 4-3 win at Stamford Bridge in the next round before making his first appearance of the season in the Champions League, coming on as a substitute against FC Schalke 04. Cudicini then featured in the next five games due to Cech's injury, conceding just one goal in the process, against Everton at Stamford Bridge in a 1-1 draw. However, the Italian shotstopper suffered an injury and would not be seen between the posts until February in a FA Cup game against Huddersfield Town. He also featured in the next round of the cup, but Chelsea lost 1-0 to Barnsley and were knocked out of the competition. Cudicini retained his place due to another injury suffered by Cech, and featured in Chelsea's 6-1 win over Derby County F.C.. He kept clean sheets in 1-0 wins against Sunderland and Middlesbrough, as well as a 2-0 away win at Manchester City and played in Chelsea's 2-1 win over local rivals Arsenal in March. Cudicini made an outstanding save in the last minutes of an epic 4-4 draw at White Hart Lane against Tottenham, when he saved from point-blank range against Dimitar Berbatov to earn Chelsea a point. He featured in both legs against Fenerbahce SK as Chelsea progressed 3-2 on aggregate, but he limped off with an injury that effectively ended his season.

International career

Cudicini has been capped for Italy at Under-18 and Under-21 level, although he has not played competitively for the full national team. That led to speculation over the possibility of Cudicini representing the England national team because he was eligible to do so after spending five years in England. Despite his eligibility, Cudicini has never shown any interest in playing for England.

Honours

Milan

*UEFA Champions League Runner-up 1993

Chelsea

*FA Cup: 2000, 2007
*FA Community Shield: 2000, 2005
*Football League Cup: 2005,2007
*UEFA Champions League Runner-up 2008
*FA Premier League Winner 2005, 2006
*FA Premier League Runner Up 2007, 2008

References

External links

* [http://www.carlocudicini.co.uk/ Carlo Cudicini Official site]
*Stats:
**nl icon [http://www.vi.nl/vi/show/id=40053/dbid=17151/typeofpage=40054/sc=d62884 Voetbal International]
**it icon [http://www.figc.it/nazionali/DettaglioConvocato?codiceConvocato=1173 National Team]
**it icon [http://www.chelseaitaly.fan-club.it Chelsea Fan Club]
*Profiles:
** [http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/fo/profiles/8986.html Yahoo Sport]
** [http://www.soccerbase.com/players_details.sd?playerid=16882 Soccerbase]
** [http://soccernet.espn.go.com/player?id=8928&cc=5901 ESPN]
** [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/shared/bsp/hi/football/statistics/players/c/cudicini_180891.stm BBC]
** [http://www.uefa.com/competitions/UCL/Players/Player=8863/index.html UEFA.com]