Christian Riganò (born 25 May 1974) is an Italian

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 ...

manager and former professional footballer who played as a

striker Striker or The Strikers may refer to: People *A participant in a strike action *A participant in a hunger strike *Blacksmith's striker, a type of blacksmith's assistant *Striker's Independent Society, the oldest mystic krewe in America People wi ...

Career

Early career

Riganò was born in Lipari,

Province of Messina Messina (, ) was a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital was the city of Messina. It was replaced by the Metropolitan City of Messina. Geography Territory It had an area of , which amounts to 12.6 percent o ...

. A former bricklayer, he started his career with amateur team Lipari, where he gained a reputation of a prolific striker. In 1997, he moved to then Serie D team

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

, but he failed to impress there. This was followed by two season with Igea Virtus, another Serie D team, and 28 goals with the Sicilian side.

Taranto

In 2000, at the age of 26, Riganò finally entered into professional football with Taranto, being instrumental in the ''rossoblus promotion in their first season, and an impressive

Serie C1 Lega Pro Prima Divisione was the third highest football (soccer), football league in Italy. It consisted of 33 teams, divided geographically into two divisions of 16 and 17 teams for group A and B respectively. Until 2008 it was known as Serie C1 ...

campaign the following year, being crowned Serie C1's topscorer with 27 goals in the 2001–02 season, and narrowly missing out on promotion to Serie B.

Florentia

In 2002, Riganò joined Florentia Viola of

Serie C2 Lega Pro Seconda Divisione was the fourth highest football league in Italy, the lowest with a professional status. Usually it consisted of 36 teams, but in the 2011–12 season, there were 41 teams divided geographically into two divisions of 2 ...

, and scored a personal record of 30 goals in 32 matches, earning the title of top-scorer in the league once again and helping Fiorentina to obtain promotion. During the 2003–04 season, he scored 23 Serie B goals in 44 matches, helping Fiorentina to win promotion to Serie A and earning his Serie A debut at the age of 30 the following season. During the 2005–06 winter transfer window, he was loaned to

Empoli Empoli () is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Florence, Tuscany, Italy, about southwest of Florence, to the south of the Arno in a plain formed by the river. The plain has been usable for agriculture since Roman times. The comm ...

with little success.

Messina

In August 2006 Riganò moved to

, making a very impressive season, scoring 19 goals in 26 appearances. He finished third on the top scorer chart in Serie A during the 2006–07 season, despite having sustained an injury in January which saw him miss action for three months.

Levante and loans

In August 2007 Riganò signed for

Levante UD Levante Unión Deportiva, S.A.D. (, ca-valencia, Llevant Unió Esportiva ) is a List of football clubs in Spain, Spanish football club in Valencia, in the Valencian Community, namesake autonomous community. Founded on 9 September 1909, Levante ...

but scored only four goals in 13 matches during his six-month stay with the Spanish side (three of which came in a hat-trick against Almería, making him the second Italian player after Christian Vieri to score a hat-trick in La Liga), being then loaned out to Siena during the January transfer window. He was released by Levante after the Valencian club went relegated to

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

Later years

Free agent Riganò joined Lega Pro Prima Divisione club

Ternana Ternana Calcio, commonly referred to as Ternana, is an Italian football club based in Terni, Umbria. The club was founded in 1925 and refounded in 1993. In its history, Ternana has twice played in Serie A (in the 1972–73 and 1974–75 seas ...

on 31 August 2008. His time at Ternana however proved to be disappointing, as Riganò played only a handful of matches, being then excluded from the first team on November. On 2 February 2009 Riganò accepted a permanent move to

Cremonese Cremona (, also ; ; lmo, label= Cremunés, Cremùna; egl, Carmona) is a city and ''comune'' in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po river in the middle of the ''Pianura Padana'' (Po Valley). It is the capital of the ...

, another Lega Pro Prima Divisione club, where he re-joined

Emiliano Mondonico Emiliano Mondonico (9 March 1947 – 29 March 2018) was an Italian professional footballer and coach. He played as a winger. His playing career was spent mostly with Cremonese, where it began and ended. Mondonico's 31-year-long managerial care ...

, his former head coach at Fiorentina. He successively left Cremonese at the end of the season, and signed with Italian club

San Frediano Rondinella S.S. San Frediano Rondinella Società Sportiva S.S.D.R.L. (usually known simply as Rondinella) is an Italian association football club based in Florence (Italy). History Rondinella Firenze Founded in 1946 as Rondinella Firenze in a restaurant ...

, the second team of Florence.

Style of play

A large and tall

who excelled in the air, Riganò was neither fast nor particularly powerful, but was known for his opportunism, anticipation, heading accuracy and eye for goal, despite his poor work-rate and struggles with fitness and weight-gain in his later career; due to his prolific goalscoring and place of birth, he earned the nicknames ''il bomber di Lipari'' and ''Riga-Gol''. A former defender, he was a well-rounded

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

, who possessed excellent movement, timing, and positional sense, which made him a difficult player to mark. Usually deployed as a centre-forward, he was also capable of using his physical strength and technical skills to hold up the ball for his team-mates when playing with his back to goal, and of providing them with assists in addition to scoring goals himself, and was an accurate penalty taker.

Honours

Club

;Taranto *

: 2000–01 ;Florentia Viola *

: 2002–03

Individual

Top-scorer: 2001–02 (27 goals) *

Top-scorer 2002–03 (30 goals) * Fiorentina Hall of Fame

References

External links

Gazzetta.it career profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rigano, Christian 1974 births Living people People from Lipari Sportspeople from the Province of Messina Association football forwards Italian footballers A.S.D. Igea 1946 players Taranto F.C. 1927 players ACF Fiorentina players Empoli F.C. players A.C.R. Messina players Levante UD footballers A.C.R. Siena 1904 players Ternana Calcio players U.S. Cremonese players Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Italian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Spain Italian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Footballers from Sicily