Abel Eduardo Balbo (; born 1 June 1966) is an Argentine

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 ...

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activitie ...

and former player who played as a striker. He is the current manager of

Estudiantes de La Plata Club Estudiantes de La Plata ( lit. "Students from La Plata"), simply referred to as Estudiantes de La Plata , is an Argentine professional sports club based in La Plata. The club's football team currently competes in the Primera División, whe ...

. Balbo played for various clubs in Argentina and Italy during the course of his career. He was also an Argentine international.

Club career

Balbo was born in Empalme Villa Constitución, Santa Fe. At club level, Balbo played for

Newell's Old Boys Club Atlético Newell's Old Boys () is an Argentine sports club based in Rosario, Santa Fe. The club was founded on 3 November 1903, and is named after Isaac Newell of the English county of Kent, one of the pioneers of Argentine football. A ...

(1987–88), River Plate (1988–89), before moving to Italy and Udinese (1989–93),

Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council * Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...

(1993–98 and 2000–02),

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second m ...

(1998–99), and

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 ...

. He played four games for

Boca Juniors Club Atlético Boca Juniors () is an Argentine sports club headquartered in La Boca, a neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. The club is mostly known for its professional football team which, since its promotion in 1913, has always played in th ...

before finally retiring. He scored a total of 138 goals in Serie A; his best seasons came in 1992–93 for Udinese and 1994–95 for Roma, with 22 goals in each of them. In 2000, Roma paid Fiorentina 1.75 billion Italian lire to re-sign him and offered him a two-year contract with 1.7 billion annual salary before tax.

International career

For

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

, Balbo scored 11 goals in 37 caps, and played at the

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicis ...

, the

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; Nels ...

, the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for t ...

s, the

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

and 1995 Copas América. In the 1995 tournament in

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

, Balbo partnered

Gabriel Batistuta Gabriel Omar Batistuta (; born 1 February 1969) is an Argentine former professional footballer. During his playing career, Batistuta was nicknamed Batigol () as well as El Ángel Gabriel (; Spanish for ''Angel Gabriel''). Regarded as one of the ...

in attack, and scored a goal against Brazil's Claudio Taffarel in an infamous quarter-final game that Argentina eventually lost in a

penalty shootout The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

after Brazilian striker Tulio Costa scored the Brazilian equalizer with 10 minutes to go – after clearly controlling the ball with his arm.

Post-retirement and coaching

After his retirement, Balbo eventually became a musician, performing songs in Italian and Spanish. He took his UEFA Pro coaching badges in 2007, and currently works as a football commentator for RAI Radio1. In February 2009 he took his first head coaching job, succeeding to Luca Gotti as manager of bottom-table

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

Treviso Treviso ( , ; vec, Trevixo) is a city and '' comune'' in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 84,669 inhabitants (as of September 2017). Some 3,000 live within the Vene ...

. He resigned only a few rounds later, on 18 March, after having achieved only one point in four games, citing lack of professionalism and organizational issues as the main reasons for his choice to step down as Treviso manager. In November 2010 he was appointed as new technical area coordinator and assistant 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 Dilettanti ...

club Atletico Arezzo until the end of the season. In the season 2012–13 he coached the

club

Arezzo Arezzo ( , , ) , also ; ett, 𐌀𐌓𐌉𐌕𐌉𐌌, Aritim. is a city and '' comune'' in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about southeast of Florence at an elevation of above sea lev ...

from the start of the season until 30 October 2012, when he left by mutual consent with the club. He successively worked as football commentator for Italian public broadcasting group RAI. In June 2022, after almost ten years without a coaching job, Balbo moved back to Argentina to accept the managerial position at

Argentine Primera División The Primera División (; en, "First Division"), known officialy as Liga Profesional de Fútbol, or Torneo Binance for sponsorship reasons, is a professional football league in Argentina, organised by the Argentine Football Association (AFA). T ...

club Central Córdoba (SdE). On 20 October, after guiding his club to safety in the 2022 Argentine Primera División, Central Córdoba announced the departure of Balbo by the end of the season. On 22 October 2022, Balbo took over fellow top tier side

Style of play

Described as "an authentic

centre-forward Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...

," by '' Il Corriere dello Sport'' in 2019, Balbo was a physically strong forward, with good feet and a powerful shot, who was renowned for his composure in front of goal and his efficient playing style. He was mainly known for his eye for goal and his movement, in particular inside the penalty area, which also made him a threat on counter–attacks; he also excelled in the air. In addition to his playing ability, he was also known to be a correct player.

Personal life

Abel Balbo is married and a practising Roman Catholic.

Career statistics

Club

*¹ Includes 1 appearance and 1 goal in the Serie B Relegation tie-breaker for the 1992–93 Serie A season. *² Includes 1 appearance in the

2001 Supercoppa Italiana The 2001 Supercoppa Italiana was a match played by 2000–01 Serie A winners Roma and 2000–01 Coppa Italia winners Fiorentina. The match took place on 19 August 2001 in Stadio Olimpico, Rome and resulted in a 3–0 victory for Roma. The goa ...

International

:Source:

Honours

Club

Newell's Old Boys *

: 1987–88 Parma *

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 ...

: 1998–99 *

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 ...

: 1998–99 Roma *

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 ...

: 2000–01 *

Supercoppa Italiana The Supercoppa Italiana ( en, Italian Super Cup) is an annual association football, football match contested by the winners of the Serie A and the Coppa Italia in the previous season. If the same team wins both the Serie A and Coppa Italia titles ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanist ...

International

Argentina *

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 has ...

runner-up *

Copa América The Copa América ( en, America Cup) or CONMEBOL Copa América, known until 1975 as the South American Football Championship (''Campeonato Sudamericano de Fútbol'' in Spanish and ''Campeonato Sul-Americano de Futebol'' in Portuguese), is the t ...

bronze medalist

Individual

Top-Scorer: 1990–91 (22 goals, with Udinese)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Balbo, Abel 1966 births Living people People from Constitución Department Argentine people of Italian descent Association football forwards Argentine footballers Argentine Roman Catholics Newell's Old Boys footballers Club Atlético River Plate footballers Udinese Calcio players A.S. Roma players Parma Calcio 1913 players ACF Fiorentina players Serie A players Serie B players Boca Juniors footballers Argentine football managers S.S. Arezzo managers A.C.D. Treviso managers Estudiantes de La Plata managers 1990 FIFA World Cup players 1994 FIFA World Cup players 1998 FIFA World Cup players 1989 Copa América players 1995 Copa América players Argentina international footballers Argentine expatriate footballers Argentine Primera División players Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Italy UEFA Cup winning players Expatriate football managers in Italy Expatriate footballers in Italy Sportspeople from Santa Fe Province Central Córdoba de Santiago del Estero managers