Riccardo Maspero (born 19 February 1970) is an Italian former

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 played as an

attacking midfielder A midfielder is an Glossary of association football terms#O, 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 #Cent ...

, and now a head coach.

Club career

Maspero's career came to prominence most notably with his time at then-

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

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 ...

, with whom he started playing professionally and played in two one-year spells in the Italian top flight. He came into his own during the promotion season of 1992–93 and impressed greatly in a side coached by

Luigi Simoni Luigi "Gigi" Simoni (22 January 1939 – 22 May 2020) was an Italian football official, player and manager. A skilled tactician, as a coach Simoni enjoyed notable success in earning promotion from Serie B to Serie A with the teams he managed, a ...

which finished 10th in Serie A during the 1993–94 season. He established a reputation as a gifted

playmaker In association football, a playmaker is a player who controls the flow of the team's play, and is often involved in offensively and defensively playing passing moves which lead to goals, through their vision, technique, ball control, creativit ...

. A move to

Sampdoria Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly referred to as Sampdoria (), is an Italian professional football club based in Genoa. The club was formed in 1946 from the merger of two existing sports clubs whose roots can be traced back to the 1890s, ...

followed, but he failed to make his mark and returned to Cremonese after one season. Despite outstanding form and a healthy return of goals from midfield, he was unable to prevent successive relegations. His career declined after a move to

Lecce Lecce ( ); el, label=Griko, Luppìu, script=Latn; la, Lupiae; grc, Λουπίαι, translit=Loupíai), group=pron is a historic city of 95,766 inhabitants (2015) in southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Lecce, the province ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, where he found opportunities limited; the club were relegated to

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 ...

at the end of the season. He was loaned to

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

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part o ...

, playing limited first-team football over the next three seasons before joining

Torino Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. T ...

for the

2000–01 Serie B The Serie B 2000–01 was the sixty-ninth tournament of this competition played in Italy since its creation. Teams Siena, Crotone, Cittadella and Ancona had been promoted from Serie C, while Torino, Venezia FC, Cagliari and Piacenza had been ...

season. Maspero's career was rejuvenated with the Granata, and he played a role in the team's return to

. In the

2001–02 Serie A The 2001–02 Serie A (known as the Serie A TIM for sponsorship reasons) was the 100th season of top-tier Italian football, the 70th in a round-robin tournament. It was composed by 18 teams, for the 14th consecutive time from season 1988–89. ...

season, he earned hero status among the club's fans with a late equaliser in a 3–3 draw with cross-town rivals and eventual Serie A champions

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 ...

in the

Derby della mole The Derby della Mole is the local derby played out between Turin's most prominent football clubs, Juventus and Torino. It is also known as the Derby di Torino or the Turin Derby in English. It is named after the Mole Antonelliana, a major landma ...

; Torino had initially been trailing 3–0. He also helped Torino to win an

UEFA Intertoto Cup The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from la, Inter, 'between' + german: toto, 'betting pool'),Most precisely, from (football pool); cf. often abbreviated and more known in the German-speaking world as UI Cup and originally called the International Foot ...

spot that season. After Torino suffered

relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, he moved on to

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the actual club was refounded in August 2002 fo ...

before playing in the amateur leagues, where he ended his career.

Coaching career

After retirement, Maspero took a coaching job at

Eccellenza The Eccellenza (, "excellence") is the fifth level (since 2014–15) of Italian football. It is a regional league, composed of 28 divisions divided geographically. All 20 regions are represented by at least one division except for Piedmont and Ao ...

amateurs Ciliverghe Mazzano, guiding them to a historical promotion to Serie D for the first time ever. This won him interest from

Lega Pro 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 ...

professionals

Pavia Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the capit ...

, who appointed him as new head coach for the 2014–15 season thereafter. On 13 November 2018, he was hired by Pro Piacenza as head coach. As Pro Piacenza experienced financial difficulties, he left the club in early 2019. On 25 February 2019, he signed with

Giana Erminio Associazione Sportiva Giana Erminio S.r.l. is an Italian football club based in Gorgonzola, Lombardy. The team currently plays in Italy's . History The club was founded in 1909 as ''Unione Sportiva Argentia'', and later adopted the current name ...

. He was dismissed by Giana Erminio on 27 September 2019 after the team only gained 2 points in the preceding 6 games. In July 2021, after two years of inactivity, Maspero was hired as the new head coach 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 ...

amateurs Franciacorta.

References

External links

Career Stats

Entry
in Italian Football Federation national teams database {{DEFAULTSORT:Maspero, Riccardo 1970 births Living people People from Lodi, Lombardy Italian footballers Italy under-21 international footballers Italian football managers Serie A players Serie B players Serie D players U.S. Cremonese players L.R. Vicenza players Torino F.C. players S.S.D. Varese Calcio players A.C. Reggiana 1919 players ACF Fiorentina players A.C. Perugia Calcio players U.C. Sampdoria players U.S. Lecce players Association football midfielders A.S.D. Fanfulla players Footballers from Lombardy Sportspeople from the Province of Lodi