Valerio Bertotto (; born 15 January 1973) is an Italian football manager, who was most recently in charge of

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 ...

club

Ascoli Ascoli may refer to: Places in Italy *Ascoli Satriano, a town and ''comune'' in the province of Foggia in the Apulia region *Province of Ascoli Piceno, a province of the Marche region **Ascoli Piceno, a city which is the seat of the province above ...

, and a former professional

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 a defender.

Club career

Bertotto started his professional career during the 1990–91 season with

Alessandria Alessandria (; pms, Lissandria ) is a city and ''comune'' in Piedmont, Italy, and the capital of the Province of Alessandria. The city is sited on the alluvial plain between the Tanaro and the Bormida rivers, about east of Turin. Alessandria ...

in the Italian

Serie C2 Lega Pro Seconda Divisione was the fourth highest football league in Italy, the lowest with a professional status. Usually it consisted of 36 teams, but in the 2011–12 season, there were 41 teams divided geographically into two divisions of 2 ...

. He 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 fo ...

in 1993, quickly becoming a historical masterpiece for the team, and spending thirteen seasons with the Friuli side, also captaining his side to what is to date their only appearance in the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

, and also becoming the Udinese player with the highest number of matches ever played for the team. In July 2006, aged 33, he left Udinese to join

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 ...

, another

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 ...

team, playing two seasons as a regular for the Tuscan side. He was successively released as a free agent in June 2008, and in January 2009 he accepted an offer from

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

Venezia Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islan ...

. He was released for free after the club was excluded from the Italian football panorama due to financial issues. In 2010, he obtained his UEFA A coaching license, which made him eligible to coach

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 ...

teams, however he had not yet started his coaching career at the time; he finally pursued a coaching career in 2012.

International career

Bertotto has played 4 times for the

Italy national football team The Italy national football team ( it, Nazionale di calcio dell'Italia) has represented Italy in international football since its first match in 1910. The national team is controlled by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), the governing bo ...

between 2000 and 2001, all during his spell at Udinese, with his senior international debut coming in a World Cup qualifying match against

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

on 11 October 2000, held in Ancona, under manager

Giovanni Trapattoni Giovanni Trapattoni (; born 17 March 1939), sometimes popularly known as "Trap" or "Il Trap", is an Italian football manager and former player, considered the most successful club coach of Italian football. A former defensive midfielder, as a p ...

. He missed out on the

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

due to a knee injury.

Style of play

Bertotto was a hard-tackling and uncompromising

central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

or right-sided defender, who was solid in the air, and effective in the timing of his challenges. Although he was neither particularly quick nor technically gifted, he made up for his lack of pace and skill with his experience and positional sense, and his greatest strength was his ability to defend opposing forwards in one-on-one situations. He also stood out for his leadership throughout his career.

Managerial career

Italy U20 Lega Pro

On 9 August 2012 he was named head coach ( it, selezionatore) of the Italy U20 Lega Pro in place of ''Giorgio Veneri''.

Serie C years

In April 2016 he took over the reins at

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

Pistoiese Unione Sportiva Pistoiese 1921 is an Italian association football club, based in Pistoia, Tuscany. Currently, Pistoiese plays in Serie D. Originally founded on 21 April 1921 and later restored after bankruptcy, the team plays their home games ...

, guiding them to safety. He left in June 2016 to become the new head coach 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 ...

, which he however left already in August during the pre-season due to disagreements with the board. In March 2017 he returned to management, accepting an offer from Serie C club

Bassano Virtus Bassano Virtus 55 Soccer Team S.p.A., commonly known as Bassano Virtus or just Bassano is a football club based in Bassano del Grappa, Veneto. The first team of the club was relocated to Vicenza in 2018 as L.R. Vicenza Virtus, while the youth ...

, with whom he qualified to the promotion playoffs. He successively served as head coach of another Serie C club, Viterbese Castrense, between July and October 2017.

Ascoli

On 25 August 2020, after three years of inactivity, he was named new head coach of

club

, this being Bertotto's first coaching experience in the Italian second division. He was dismissed on 29 November 2020 due to poor results, following a 1–2 league defeat to

Personal life

On 4 November 2020 he tested positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Managerial statistics

Honours

Udinese *

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 ...

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 ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bertotto, Valerio 1973 births Living people Footballers from Turin Italian footballers Italy international footballers Association football defenders U.S. Alessandria Calcio 1912 players Udinese Calcio players A.C.N. Siena 1904 players Venezia F.C. players Serie A players Serie B players