Roberto Landi (born 2 January 1956) is an Italian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

manager and former player.

Playing career

Landi was born in

Forlì Forlì ( , ; rgn, Furlè ; la, Forum Livii) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and city in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. It is the central city of Romagna. The city is situated along the Via E ...

. A

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

, he joined the Piacenza youth system in 1966 and later joined the first team, then playing in

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 ...

division. He later moved to

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 ...

as second-choice goalkeeper, and then played also for

Ravenna Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the cap ...

and

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...

, before to leave Italy to join the

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in 1979, at the age of 23. During his

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

n time, he played for

Vancouver Whitecaps Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional soccer team based in Vancouver. They compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The MLS iteration of the club was established on March ...

and Chicago Sting, before signing for South African side

Kaizer Chiefs Kaizer Chiefs Football Club (often known as Chiefs) are a South African professional football club based in Naturena, Johannesburg South, that plays in the Premier Soccer League. The team is nicknamed ''AmaKhosi'', which means "Lords" or "Chie ...

, and returning in the United States with New York Cosmos in 1983. He then returned in Italy and played for a number of amateur sides before retiring at the age of 30.

Coaching career

Landi served as goalkeeping coach for the

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during their

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and

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

campaigns. From 1992 to 1995 he served as head coach of Italian amateur team Marignano. In 1998, he became head coach of the Georgia U21 national team, and later filled the same position for the Lithuania U21 in 2001. He obtained a

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 ...

in 2003, and was part of

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

managing staff in their 2002–03 campaign. In January 2005 he became head coach of National Bucharest, where he achieved a record 17 wins in a row. He left the post in September 2005, citing personal reasons, later being appointed as Qatar U21 head coach. He then briefly moved in Hungary, serving as FC Sopron head for three matches in the 2006–07 season before being sacked for losing their local derby to Győr. In October 2007 he was linked with the managing position at

Port Vale F.C. Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley of ...

through his agent

Bryan Yeubrey Bryan Yeubrey (born 18 August 1960) is a PR consultant and agent for sportspeople, musicians and writers. Career As a FIFA licensed players' agent, he has represented international footballers including Essam El-Hadary and Hossam Ghaly. He is al ...

. In June 2008 Landi was linked with Scottish First Division side

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He was appointed manager of the club on 11 June, August 2008 best coach of the month. In June 2009, he was unveiled as new head coach of

Royale Union Saint-Gilloise Royale Union Saint-Gilloise , abbreviated to Union SG or USG, unofficially simply called Union, is a Belgian football club originally located in the municipality of Saint-Gilles, in Brussels, although since the 1920s it has been based at the Jos ...

. He was however dismissed later in December due to money problems with the club. He was hired in January 2011 to be the Liberia national team, but was sacked in February 2012. He was linked to the position again in May 2014.

Managerial statistics

References

External links