Roberto Muzzi (; born 21 September 1971) is an Italian former professional football striker, currently contracted with Cagliari as a "club manager". During his career, he played for several Italian clubs including

A.S. Roma ' (''Rome Sport Association''), commonly referred to as Roma (), is a professional football club based in Rome, Italy. Founded by a merger in 1927, Roma has participated in the top tier of Italian football for all of its existence, except for ...

, Pisa Calcio,

Cagliari Calcio Cagliari Calcio, commonly referred to as Cagliari (), is an Italian football club based in Cagliari, Sardinia. In the 2022-23 season, they compete in Serie B. As of 2021–22, the team is temporarily playing their home games at the 16,416-sea ...

Udinese Calcio 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 foo ...

, and S.S. Lazio. He was also part of the Italy U-21 team from 1990 to 1994, playing 19 matches and scoring 4 goals under manager Cesare Maldini, and winning the

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 ...

in 1992 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 sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

; he also took part at the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

, although he never received a call-up for the senior Italy side. He was known in particular for his electrifying speed as a forward.

Career

Muzzi started his career with

, making his debut in

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 ...

on 11 February 1990, in a league match 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 ...

ended in a 1–1 tie, and scoring his first goal the following season. With Roma, he won the

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 ...

in 1991, also helping his side to reach an all-Italian UEFA Cup Final that season, losing out to Inter, also missing out on the

1991 Supercoppa Italiana The 1991 Supercoppa Italiana was a match contested by 1990–91 Serie A winners Sampdoria and 1990–91 Coppa Italia winners Roma. The match took place on 24 August 1991 in Marassi, Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capit ...

, which was won by

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, ...

. Muzzi was loaned 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 ...

club Pisa in November 1993, where he scored 8 goals in 23 games. He then returned to Roma only to be sold in November 1994 to Cagliari, where he then spent four seasons, playing a total 144 games with 31

goals and 17 in

. Muzzi joined

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 ...

during the 1999–2000 season, spending four more seasons with the ''zebrette''; in total, he played 103 games for the club, scoring 39 goals, winning the

2000 UEFA Intertoto Cup The 2000 UEFA Intertoto Cup finals were won by Udinese, Celta Vigo, and Stuttgart. All three teams advanced to the UEFA Cup. First round *Matches played on 18–19 June and 25–26 June First leg ---- ''The game was awa ...

, which enabled the Friuli side to qualify for the

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...

the following season. He then returned to Rome to join

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

for the 2003–04 season; although he was not a regular first-team member, his performances often proved to be decisive on the pitch, as shown by his goal which enabled Lazio to avoid relegation during the 2004–05 season; during his time with the club, he won the

2003–04 Coppa Italia The 2003–04 Coppa Italia was the 57th edition of the tournament. Lazio won the tournament for the 4th time in club history, winning the two-legged final over Juventus on a 4–2 aggregate score. Seedings and format In the 2003–04 Coppa Italia ...

, also reaching the semi-finals of the

2003–04 UEFA Cup The 2003–04 UEFA Cup was won by Valencia in the final against Marseille. It wrapped up a league and UEFA Cup double for Valencia. Porto could not defend their title as they automatically qualified for the 2003–04 UEFA Champions League and a ...

, but missed out on the 2004 Supercoppa Italiana to

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. In September 2005, he joined

side

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 ...

, and was one of the protagonists in the ''granatas return to the

top flight Top Flight (April 15, 1929 – 1949) was an American U.S. Hall of Fame Thoroughbred racehorse. She was the leading American filly of her generation at two and three years of age. Background Bred in Kentucky by the very prominent horseman Harry ...

. His second season with Torino, now in Serie A, saw Muzzi scoring only 3 goals. In September 2006, at the age of 35, and after having turned down a youth coach role at Torino, he agreed a two-year contract with Serie C1's

Padova Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

. In October 2008 he announced his retirement from active football.

Coaching and managerial career

After retirement, he joined

AS Roma ' (''Rome Sport Association''), commonly referred to as Roma (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Rome, Italy. Founded by a merger in 1927, Roma has participated in the top tier of Italian football for all of its ...

as a youth coach in 2009, serving on a number of different positions within the club until 2015. He subsequently joined

Andrea Stramaccioni Andrea Stramaccioni (; born 9 January 1976) is an Italian football manager and former player who last managed Qatari club Al Gharafa. A football coach with experiences as a youth coach of Roma and Inter Milan, he was put in charge of first tea ...

's coaching staff at Panathinaikos and

AC Sparta Praha ) but refer to Spartans as "''Rudí''" ( en, The Dark Reds/The Maroons).'' Letenští'' , ground = Generali Česká pojišťovna Arena , capacity = 19,416 , clubname = Sparta Prague , image = Sparta Praha logo.png , image_size = 160px , fu ...

. In 2019 he was named as

Aurelio Andreazzoli Aurelio Andreazzoli (born 5 November 1953) is an Italian football coach. He is currently the head coach of club Ternana. Career In 2005, Andreazzoli joined Roma to become head coach Luciano Spalletti's assistant coach, becoming a valuable p ...

's assistant at Empoli, following the manager also at

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

. On 14 November 2019 he took over as head coach of Serie B club Empoli, signing a deal with the Tuscan club till the end of the 2019–20 Serie B season. He was however dismissed on 26 January 2020, following a string of disappointing results during his short tenure at the club. In July 2020 he accepted an offer to become the new technical director of

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 A ...

amateurs Lupa Frascati. A month later, following the club's takeover by the Lupa Frascati owners, he was announced as new youth system chief of then-

Serie C 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 ...

club Arezzo. On 5 February 2022, Muzzi was dismissed from his role. In July 2022, Muzzi agreed to return to Cagliari as a "club manager", with the duty of assisting director of football Stefano Capozucca and dealing with organizational and management matters within the first team squad. On 20 December 2022, following the dismissal of Fabio Liverani, Muzzi was appointed interim head coach. Following the appointment 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 ...

as new head coach, Muzzi filled in for a single game, a 2–0 win against Cosenza, although he could not serve from the dugout and had to replaced by Fabio Pisacane due to him being sick.

Honours

Club

Roma *

1990–91 Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 '' Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since t ...

Udinese * UEFA Intertoto Cup:

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 ...

Lazio *

: 2003–04

International

Italy under-21 *

: 1992,

References

External links

Profile at La Gazzetta dello Sport
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muzzi, Roberto 1971 births Living people Footballers from Rome Association football forwards Italian footballers Italy youth international footballers Italy under-21 international footballers A.S. Roma players Pisa S.C. players Cagliari Calcio players Udinese Calcio players S.S. Lazio players Torino F.C. players Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Olympic footballers of Italy Footballers at the 1992 Summer Olympics Calcio Padova players Panathinaikos F.C. non-playing staff Italian expatriates in the Czech Republic Italian expatriates in Greece Italian football managers Empoli F.C. managers Serie B managers