Gabriele Ambrosetti (born 7 August 1973) is an

Italian football Football ( it, calcio ) is the most popular sport in Italy. The Italy national football team is considered to be one of the best national teams in the world. They have won the FIFA World Cup four times (1934, 1938, 1982, 2006), trailing only ...

manager and former player, who played as a winger.

Playing career

Born in

Varese Varese ( , , or ; lmo, label= Varesino, Varés ; la, Baretium; archaic german: Väris) is a city and ''comune'' in north-western Lombardy, northern Italy, north-west of Milan. The population of Varese in 2018 has reached 80,559. It is the c ...

, Ambrosetti made his professional debut with his hometown club, and later played for several Italian sides, including

Brescia Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and ''comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Iseo ...

Venezia Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islan ...

, and

Vicenza Vicenza ( , ; ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the northern base of the ''Monte Berico'', where it straddles the Bacchiglione River. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan. Vicenza is a thr ...

. He won the

1996–97 Coppa Italia The 1996–97 Coppa Italia, the 50th Coppa Italia was an Italian Football Federation domestic cup competition won by Vicenza. Preliminary round ''p=after penalty shoot-out'' Final phase Knockout stage Final First leg Second leg Vicen ...

at Vicenza, defeating

Napoli Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

3–1 on aggregate in the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

, and in April 1998 played in a

Cup Winners Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tournam ...

semi-final against Chelsea, where his performances inspired the English

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

club to sign him for £3.5 million in August 1999. He arrived as, according to his manager, Gianluca Vialli, the 'Italian Ryan Giggs', but struggled to live up to the tag and in four years made only a handful of appearances. He made his Chelsea debut as a substitute on 21 August in a 1–0 home win against Aston Villa, replacing compatriot

Gianfranco Zola Gianfranco Zola (; born 5 July 1966) is an Italian football manager and former footballer who played predominantly as a forward. He was most recently the assistant manager of Chelsea. He spent the first decade of his playing career playing i ...

for the last three minutes. The only goal he scored for Chelsea was in a 5–0 win against

Galatasaray Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (, ''Galatasaray Sports Club'') is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul in Turkey. Most notable for its association football department, the club also consists of various other de ...

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

, on 20 October 1999 during the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

Group Stage. Ambrosetti also contributed one appearance to Chelsea's victorious

1999–2000 FA Cup The 1999–2000 FA Cup (known as The FA Cup sponsored by AXA for sponsorship reasons) was the 119th staging of the FA Cup. Both the semifinals and final of the competition were played at Wembley Stadium for the last time before reconstruction wor ...

campaign. He spent his final seasons with

Piacenza Piacenza (; egl, label= Piacentino, Piaṡëinsa ; ) is a city and in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, and the capital of the eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with over ...

and Pro Patria, before retiring.

Style of play

Capable of playing both as a forward and as a

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 ...

, Ambrosetti was a quick and technically gifted winger, who was known for his pace, ability to get past players, and his powerful and accurate shot from distance.

Coaching career

In January 2016 Ambrosetti joined the coaching staff of Swansea City under their newly appointed manager

Francesco Guidolin Francesco Guidolin (; born 3 October 1955) is an Italian football manager and former player, most recently the manager of Premier League team Swansea City. He has coached various Italian club sides in Serie A, winning the 1996–97 Coppa Ital ...

, who had previously coached Ambrosetti at Vicenza. When Guidolin was sacked, Ambrosetti also left the club.

Honours

;Brescia * Anglo-Italian Cup: 1993–94 ;Vicenza *

Coppa Italia The ("Italy Cup") is an annual knockout cup competition in Italian football organized by the FIGC until the 2009–10 season and the Lega Serie A ever since. History The beginning of the tournament was turbulent, due to the complexity of ...

: 1996–97 ;Chelsea *

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

: 1999–2000 * FA Community Shield:

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

References

Brescia Calcio players Chelsea F.C. players Italian expatriate footballers Italian footballers Living people Premier League players Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players L.R. Vicenza players Piacenza Calcio 1919 players Aurora Pro Patria 1919 players Expatriate footballers in England Italian expatriate sportspeople in England 1973 births Sportspeople from Varese Swansea City A.F.C. non-playing staff Association football midfielders Footballers from Lombardy {{Italy-footy-midfielder-1970s-stub