Roberto Baronio (; born 11 December 1977) is an Italian professional football manager and former player. He was a part of

Andrea Pirlo Andrea Pirlo (; born 19 May 1979) is an Italian professional football coach and former player who is head coach of Süper Lig club Fatih Karagümrük. Considered one of the best deep-lying playmakers ever, Pirlo was renowned for his visio ...

's backroom staff at Juventus. He played in the position of

deep-lying playmaker 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 ...

, where excelled due to his technical ability, vision, passing, and physical attributes, despite his lack of pace; he also possessed an accurate shot from distance and he was an accurate set-piece taker. Despite his talent, he failed to live up to his potential later in his career.

Club career

Born in

Manerbio Manerbio (Brescian: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy, northern Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the ...

, Baronio is a youth product of his hometown club

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 ...

. He made his

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 Cop ...

debut in 1995, against Bari. In 1996, he was bought by

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, and loaned out 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 thr ...

. He did not become a regular at Vicenza and returned to Lazio, who once again sent him on loan to gain experience. This time he was sent south to

Reggina Reggina 1914 S.r.l., commonly referred to as Reggina, is an Italian football club based in Reggio Calabria. Founded in 1914, they currently play in Serie B, and play their home matches at the 27,763 seater Stadio Oreste Granillo. They are n ...

where, along with

, he was a key protagonist in their Serie A survival. In 2000, he was awarded the title of

Serie A Young Footballer of the Year The AIC Serie A Young Footballer of the Year ( it, Migliore calciatore giovane AIC) was a yearly award organized by the Italian Footballers' Association (AIC) given to the under-24 footballer who was considered to have performed the best over the ...

. Following his spell in Calabria, Baronio was sent 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 fol ...

, and continued to develop, firmly considered one of Italy's brightest young talents; yet, he was unable to find a place in the Lazio squad, which at the time was achieving notable success both domestically and internationally. In 2002, Baronio was sent to

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 pa ...

, where he had a poor year in a side which was relegated to

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie 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 season. It had been ...

. Baronio then headed to

Chievo Chievo (4,500 inhabitants) is a frazione of Verona located to the west of the city, around from the historic city centre, on the shores of the river Adige. It is best known for its football team, A.C. ChievoVerona, which competes in the second ...

and

Udinese Udinese Calcio, commonly referred to as Udinese, is a professional Italian football club based in Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, that currently plays in Serie A. It was founded on 30 November 1896 as a sports club, and on 5 July 1911 as a ...

where he became a regular and began to show signs of becoming the elite footballer many expected. This culminated in a return to Lazio, as well as a debut with Marcello Lippi's Azzurri in 2005. Baronio failed however, to seal a place in the national team, missing the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

and he also failed to establish himself as a regular at Lazio, with Cristian Ledesma filling the void left by

Fabio Liverani Fabio Liverani (; born 29 April 1976) is an Italian football manager and former midfielder, who was most recently in charge of Cagliari. He made 288 Serie A appearances across 12 seasons, representing Perugia, Lazio, Fiorentina and Palermo. He ...

. Offered a loan spell in

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men' ...

with Levante, Baronio instead refused and opted to try and force his way into the Lazio side. He never managed to achieve this, however and is regarded as an unfulfilled talent. Baronio was sent on loan to hometown club

, for the 2008–09 season, and was a key player in the ''rondinelles promotion push, ultimately losing to Livorno in the playoffs. At the end of the season, he returned to Lazio with the intention to reclaim a first team place following the departure of coach

Delio Rossi Delio Rossi (born 26 January 1960) is an Italian football manager and former footballer who played as a midfielder. He was most recently in charge as head coach of Serie B club Ascoli. Playing career Rossi was born in Rimini. His playing career ...

and the appointment of new boss

Davide Ballardini Davide Ballardini (born 6 January 1964) is an Italian football manager. He formerly played professionally for Cesena as a midfielder. He is currently the head coach of club Cremonese. Playing career A former midfielder, Ballardini spent seve ...

, who promptly presented him as a regular in the successful

2009 Supercoppa Italiana The 2009 Supercoppa Italiana was a match played by the 2008–09 Serie A winners Internazionale and 2008–09 Coppa Italia winners Lazio. It took place on 8 August 2009 at the Beijing National Stadium in Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), al ...

game against

Inter Inter may refer to: Association football clubs * Inter Milan, an Italian club * SC Internacional, a Brazilian club * Inter Miami CF, an American club * FC Inter Sibiu, a Romanian club * FC Inter Turku, a Finnish club * FK Inter Bratislava, a form ...

and later also in the following Serie A league games, partially due to Ledesma was frozen by the club for contract dispute. After the dismissal of Ballardini and the appointment of

Edy Reja Edoardo Reja (born 10 October 1945) is an Italian professional football coach and former player who last manages the Albania national football team. After a career as a midfielder spent mostly with SPAL and Palermo, he began working as a mana ...

as new head coach, Baronio found again limited space in the first team and left Lazio on 30 June 2010 after his contract expired. In September 2010

Lega Pro Prima Divisione Lega Pro Prima Divisione was the third highest 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. Before the 1978 ...

club Atletico Roma announced to have signed Baronio on a free transfer. At the end of the season, he became a free agent without a team, after his club went bankrupt, and he retired from football in 2011.

International career

Baronio first represented Italy with the under-17 and under-18 sides (now called under-18 and under-19 due to name change of the UEFA tournament in 2001, to reflect the age limit at the end of season instead of the age limit as the start of season) . In 1997, he was part of Under-23 side that won the Mediterranean Games and also won the

2000 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship The 2000 UEFA European Under-21 Championship was the 12th staging of UEFA's European Under-21 Championship. The final tournament was hosted by Slovakia from 27 May to 4 June 2000. The tournament had 47 entrants. Northern Ireland competed for the f ...

with the Under-21 team led by

Marco Tardelli Marco Tardelli (; born 24 September 1954) is an Italian former football player and manager. At club level, he played as a midfielder for several Italian clubs; he began his career with Pisa, and later played for Como, Juventus, and Internaziona ...

; later that year, he also took part at the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 ( Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from ...

. In 2005, Baronio was called up by the Italy national team manager at the time, Marcello Lippi. He made his senior debut in a summer tournament in the USA against

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...

on 11 June, in what remains his only Azzurri appearance to date.

Coaching career

After receiving his coaching badges in 2015, he was named as the Italy U-18 head coach, as well as Paolo Vanoli's assistant to the Italy U-19. He was successively promoted as head of the Italy U-19 team in August 2016. He left the national team in 2017, and subsequently was named in charge of the Under-19 team of his former club

. He left Brescia in July 2018 to become the new Under-19 youth coach of

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 ...

. On 20 January 2020, Napoli sacked Baronio 5 consecutive defeats between league and cup. In August 2020, Baronio was hired as a part of newly appointed Juventus head coach

's backroom staff. His role was defined as technical collaborator.Official: Tudor is Pirlo's assistant at Juve
football-italia.net, 23 August 2020

Honours

Club

;Lazio * Supercoppa Italiana:

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

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 ...

, 2009 *

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 tourn ...

: 1998–99

International

;Italy * Mediterranean Games:

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 ...

UEFA European Under-21 Championship The UEFA European Under-21 Championship, the UEFA Under-21 Championship or simply the Euro Under-21, is a biennial football competition contested by the European men's under-21 national teams of the UEFA member associations. Since 1992, the comp ...

Individual

: 2000

References

External links

FootyMania.com:Player Profile-Roberto Baronio

FIGC International Career Statistics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baronio, Roberto 1977 births Living people Sportspeople from the Province of Brescia Association football midfielders Italian footballers Italy international footballers Italy youth international footballers Italy under-21 international footballers A.C. ChievoVerona players Brescia Calcio players ACF Fiorentina players L.R. Vicenza players A.C. Perugia Calcio players Reggina 1914 players S.S. Lazio players Udinese Calcio players Atletico Roma F.C. players Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Footballers at the 2000 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers of Italy Mediterranean Games gold medalists for Italy Mediterranean Games medalists in football Competitors at the 1997 Mediterranean Games Juventus F.C. non-playing staff Footballers from Lombardy