Bruno Gerzeli (October 3, 1925 – November 8, 1982) was an Italian professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player.

Career

Born in Monfalcone, Gerzeli, a winger, inside forward and centre-forward, started his career in the

Serie C The Serie C () is the third-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie B and Serie A. The Lega Italiana Calcio Professionistico (Lega Pro) is the governing body that runs the Serie C. The unification of the Lega Pro ...

side C.R.D.A. Monfalcone, which was the team of his hometown Monfalcone. After World War II, Gerzeli played the 1945-46 Serie C season for Monfalconese (which was the new name of C.R.D.A. Monfalcone); he was then signed by Venezia, a team which was competing in the

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

. Gerzeli only played one match during the

1946–47 Serie A The 1946–47 Serie A season was won by Torino. Teams Alessandria had been promoted from the 1945–46 Serie B-C Alta Italia and Napoli had been promoted from the 1945–46 Campionato Centro-Sud Serie A-B. Events Following the expansion of th ...

season, on July 6, 1947, against Triestina. After this one-match experience, he left Venezia and moved to Marzotto Valdagno, coming back to Serie C. He played a Serie B championship in 1948–1949 with Salernitana. In 1952 he decided to leave Italy for

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

, a nation in which professional football was well-paid because of the so-called ''

El Dorado El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...

'' period. He played for Deportivo Samarios in

along with two other Italian footballers,

Corrado Contin Corrado "Dino" Contin (7 January 1922 – 16 November 2001) was an Italian professional football player. He played for 4 seasons (65 games, no goals) in the Serie A for A.S. Roma. He played for Deportivo Samarios in Colombia Colombia (, ...

and

Alessandro Adam Alessandro is both a given name and a surname, the Italian form of the name Alexander. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name Alessandro * Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), Italian portrait painter * Alessandro Baric ...

. He collected 20 appearances with Samarios, scoring five goals (the first of which was scored against

Atlético Nacional Atlético Nacional S. A., best known as Atlético Nacional, is a Colombian professional association football, football club based in Medellín. The club is one of only three clubs to have played in every first division tournament in the countr ...

on June 1, 1952). In the summer of 1954 he played in the

National Soccer League The National Soccer League (NSL) was the top-level soccer league in Australia, run by Soccer Australia and later the Australian Soccer Association. The NSL, the A-League's predecessor, spanned 28 seasons from its inception in 1977 until its d ...

(NSL) with Toronto Hungarians. In 1956, he continued playing in the NSL with Toronto Sparta, and was suspended by the league until 1960 after an incident with a referee in late 1958. In 1963, he served as a player-coach for K.F.C. Estonia in the National Soccer League.

Personal

After he retired from playing, Gerzeli emigrated to Canada in 1954. He married and moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

where he coached the

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...

soccer program. He was originally baptized as a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

, but later converted to

Mormonism Mormonism is the religious tradition and theology of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. As a label, Mormonism has been applied to various aspects of t ...

. Gerzeli died in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

on November 8, 1982, due to hepatitis of the liver.

References

External links

Profile
at Enciclopediadelcalcio.it {{DEFAULTSORT:Gerzeli, Bruno 1925 births 1982 deaths Italian footballers Italian expatriate footballers Serie A players Venezia F.C. players U.S. Salernitana 1919 players Unión Magdalena footballers Association football forwards A.C.D. Trissino-Valdagno players Canadian National Soccer League players Canadian National Soccer League coaches Expatriate soccer players in Canada Italian expatriate sportspeople in Canada Expatriate footballers in Colombia Italian expatriate sportspeople in Colombia