Daniel Boloca (born 22 December 1998) is a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

central midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

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 ...

club

Sassuolo Sassuolo (; egl, label=Modenese dialect, Modenese, Sasól ) is an Italian town, ''comune'', and industrial centre of the Province of Modena in Emilia-Romagna. Standing on the right bank of the river Secchia some southwest of Modena, the town ...

. Born in Italy, he has appeared for the

Romania national team Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and t ...

at senior level.

Club career

Born and raised in Italy to Romanian parents, Boloca started his career with the youth teams of

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

, before leaving in 2017 to join Slovak club Tatran Prešov. He successively went on to move back to Italy, playing for a number of

Serie D The Serie D () is the top level of semi-professional football in the country. The fourth tier of the Italian league system, the competition sits beneath the third professional league, Serie C. It is administered by the Lega Nazionale Dilettant ...

teams before being noted by Guido Angelozzi, sporting director of Spezia, who agreed on a three-year contract with him in May 2020; the move was however cancelled by Spezia following promotion to Serie A and a change in the club management that led to Angelozzi's departure; in November 2020, after a few months without a club, Boloca eventually signed for

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie Balkrishna Industries, BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 ...

club

Frosinone Frosinone (, local dialect: ) is a town and ''comune'' in Lazio, central Italy, the administrative seat of the province of Frosinone. It is located about south-east of Rome close to the Rome-Naples A1 Motorway. The city is the main city of the Va ...

, just a few days after Angelozzi's appointment as the club's new sporting director. At Frosinone, Boloca quickly became a regular and eventually was one of the protagonists of the first team that won the

2022–23 Serie B The 2022–23 Serie B (known as the Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons) is the 91st season of the Serie B since its establishment in 1929. Changes The following teams have changed division since the 2021–22 season: To Serie B Relegated fro ...

title under head coach

Fabio Grosso Fabio Grosso (; born 28 November 1977) is an Italian former professional footballer and current manager of Frosinone Calcio. After playing for several smaller Italian clubs, such as Renato Curi, Chieti and Perugia, he made his breakthrough dur ...

. On 13 July 2023, Boloca left Frosinone for fellow Serie A club

International career

Boloca made his international debut for the

on 17 November 2022, replacing

Răzvan Marin Răzvan Gabriel Marin (; born 23 May 1996) is a Romanian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Italian club Empoli, on loan from Cagliari, and the Romania national team. He began his senior career with local club Viitorul Const ...

in the 84th minute in a friendly against

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

, ended in a 2–1 defeat for the Romanian team. Later that year,

Roberto Mancini Roberto Mancini (; born 27 November 1964) is an Italian football manager and former player. He is currently the manager of the Italy national team. As a player, Mancini operated as a deep-lying forward, and was best known for his time at Samp ...

, Italy's national team head coach, announced that he was considering calling Boloca, despite having already played for Romania, as all these games were friendlies. On 15 December 2022, Boloca was selected to join the ''Azzurri'' on a training camp; after that, Boloca publicly declared his preference to play for Italy over Romania in case Mancini would choose to pick him in the future.

Personal life

Boloca is the older brother of defender

Gabriele Boloca Gabriele Boloca (born 31 March 2001) is a Romanian footballer who plays as a centre-back for Serie D club Chieri. Club career A youth product of Juventus, Boloca was first called-up by Juventus U23 – the reserve team of Juventus – on 10 ...

Career statistics

Honours

;Frosinone *

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boloca, Daniel 1998 births Living people People from Chieri Footballers from the Metropolitan City of Turin Italian men's footballers Romanian men's footballers Italian people of Romanian descent Men's association football midfielders 1. FC Tatran Prešov players Pro Sesto 1913 players ASD Francavilla players Frosinone Calcio players US Sassuolo Calcio players Slovak First Football League players Serie A players Serie B players Serie D players Romania men's international footballers Romanian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Slovakia Romanian expatriate sportspeople in Slovakia Italian expatriate sportspeople in Slovakia Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Romanian expatriate sportspeople in Italy