Ivo Pulga (born 20 June 1964) is an Italian

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

coach and former player, who played 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 ...

. He currently works as a scout with

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. ...

in the

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 ...

Career

Playing career

A physical centre midfielder, Pulga started his career at

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 ...

amateurs

Carpi Carpi may refer to: Places * Carpi, Emilia-Romagna, a large town in the province of Modena, central Italy * Carpi (Africa), a city and former diocese of Roman Africa, now a Latin Catholic titular bishopric People * Carpi (people), an ancie ...

; after a rather unsuccessful loan at

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

(no first team appearances), he moved back into professionalism in 1984 by joining

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 ...

club

Modena Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...

. In 1985, he joined

Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...

, then in Serie C1 as well; from 1989 to 1991 he was one of the protagonists, as team captain and established fan favourite player, of the club's two consecutive promotions to Serie A under the tenure of

Claudio Ranieri Claudio Ranieri Grande Ufficiale OMRI (; born 20 October 1951) is an Italian football manager and former player. He will be the new head coach of club Cagliari from 1 January 2023. Ranieri began his managerial career in the lower leagues in ...

. He then joined high-flyers

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...

in 1991, winning a

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 ...

and a

UEFA 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 tourna ...

while at the club but playing far less than before. Pulga left Parma in 1993 to sign for

club

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 th ...

, and then returned to Carpi one year later, ending his playing career after five more seasons there.

Coaching career

After retirement, Pulga became a youth coach at

(first at ''Allievi Nazionali'', then at ''Primavera''). He then served as Agatino Cuttone's assistant during some part of the 2011–12 Serie B campaign. An UEFA Pro licensed coach, Pulga was named to replace

Massimo Ficcadenti Massimo Ficcadenti (born 6 November 1967 in Fermo) is an Italian football manager and former midfielder. Career Playing Ficcadenti started his playing career with Sambenedettese, where he played from 1985 to 1989. He then signed for Messina, pla ...

as new coach of Serie A club

, alongside newly appointed assistant Diego López, on 2 October 2012 in a somewhat surprise move due to his lack of managerial experience. He swapped roles with López in July 2013, after the latter was allowed to serve as head coach after being admitted at the yearly

UEFA Pro License UEFA, the governing body for football in Europe, mandates several coaching licences for professional managers, each valid for coaching at a certain level. These include the UEFA Pro Licence, the UEFA A Licence, and the UEFA B Licence. They are is ...

course. He was relieved from his assistant coach duties on 18 February 2014 by club chairman Massimo Cellino, who however changed his mind on 6 April 2014 by dismissing Diego López instead and re-hiring Pulga, this time as head coach. He returned into management on 29 April 2018, as the new head coach of

in the

league, a team that was acquired by Cellino (his former president at Cagliari) just a few months earlier. On 6 June 2018, he was replaced as head coach by

David Suazo Óscar David Suazo Velázquez (born 5 November 1979) is a Honduran retired professional footballer turned coach who played as a striker. Suazo played more than 300 league games and scored over 980 league goals in Italy during a span of 7 yea ...

Managerial statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pulga, Ivo 1964 births Living people Sportspeople from Modena Italian footballers Association football midfielders A.C. Carpi players Modena F.C. players Cagliari Calcio players Parma Calcio 1913 players L.R. Vicenza players Cagliari Calcio managers Brescia Calcio managers Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Italian football managers Serie A managers Footballers from Emilia-Romagna