Luca Fusi (; born 7 June 1963) is an Italian 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 ...

turned

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 activities o ...

, who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an 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 central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

or defender. He is the current head coach of

Lega Pro Seconda Divisione 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 ...

team Castel Rigone. During his club career he played for

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label=Comasco dialect, Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and ...

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, ...

, Napoli,

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

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

. He earned 8 caps 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 ...

and took part in the

1988 UEFA European Football Championship The 1988 UEFA European Football Championship final tournament was held in West Germany from 10 to 25 June 1988. It was the eighth UEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and supported by UEFA. The tournament crowned the Nethe ...

. He was known as an intelligent, hardworking, tactically versatile, and correct player throughout his career, with good technique and determination, and could also play as a

sweeper Sweepers are small, tropical marine (occasionally brackish) perciform fish of the family Pempheridae. Found in the western Atlantic Ocean and Indo-Pacific region, the family contains about 26 species in two genera. One species (''Pempheris xanth ...

, a role in which he was frequently deployed in his later career, following his athletic decline, due to his playmaking ability.

Club career

Fusi began his career with

, then playing for

from 1986 to 1988, and also winning a

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 ...

with the Genoan side. In 1988, he left Sampdoria to join Napoli, winning a

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 Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

in 1989 and a

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 ...

championship type in 1990. In June 1990, he successively left Napoli to become part of the

midfield. Ironically for him, he scored his only Serie A goal for Torino away to Napoli on 16 February 1992, a left-footed strike from outside the area. Having won another

title in

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

, also reaching the

1992 UEFA Cup final The 1992 UEFA Cup Final was played on 29 April 1992 and 13 May 1992 between Ajax of the Netherlands and Torino of Italy. Ajax won on away goals after a 2–2 draw in the first leg in Turin and a 0–0 draw in the second in Amsterdam. The victory m ...

, he moved to crosstown rivals

, where he won another

title and a personal third

in 1995, although he began to be deployed less frequently when Lippi switched to a zonal marking defensive system, which did not feature a sweeper, and collected only 10 appearances in the league in total, and 18 in all competitions throughout the season. He ended his career with Swiss side AC Lugano, where he played from 1996 to 1997.

International career

Fusi made his Italy national team debut on 31 March 1988 in Split, against

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

, as a substitute for

Luigi De Agostini Luigi De Agostini (; born 7 April 1961) is an Italian former football defender, primarily in the role of an attacking full-back or winger on the left flank, although he was also capable of playing in several other positions both in defence an ...

. He was also called up for Italy at the UEFA Euro 1988 under manager Azeglio Vicini, but did not play in any of Italy's matches during the tournament as the team reached the semi-finals. In total, Fusi made 8 appearances for Italy between 1988 and 1992.

Coaching career

After two seasons as assistant coach at

Cesena Cesena (; rgn, Cisêna) is a city and ''comune'' in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, served by Autostrada A14, and located near the Apennine Mountains, about from the Adriatic Sea. The total population is 97,137. History Cesena was o ...

, in 2007–08 season, Fusi served as head coach of Bellaria Igea of

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 ...

(fourth tier). In June 2008, he signed for Real Marcianise of

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� ...

(third tier), guiding them to a mid-table finish. He is currently serving as head coach of

Foligno Foligno (; Southern Umbrian: ''Fuligno'') is an ancient town of Italy in the province of Perugia in east central Umbria, on the Topino river where it leaves the Apennines and enters the wide plain of the Clitunno river system. It is located so ...

, another Lega Pro Prima Divisione team, for the 2009–10 season. He was removed from his managerial duties on 27 April 2010 due to poor results, with Foligno in 15th place, and replaced by

Salvatore Matrecano Salvatore Matrecano (born 5 October 1970) is an Italian former footballer turned football coach, who played as a defender. He was most recently head coach of the Serie C team Paganese. Club career During his career, Matrecano played for sever ...

. On 23 October 2013, Fusi became coach of Castel Rigone.

Honours

Club

Sampdoria *

: 1987–88 Napoli *

: 1989–90 *

: 1988–89 Torino *

Mitropa Cup The Mitropa Cup, officially called the La Coupe de l'Europe Centrale or Central European Cup, was one of the first international major European football cups for club sides. It was conducted among the successor states of the former Austria-Hungar ...

: 1991 *

: 1992–93 Juventus *

: 1994–95 *

Supercoppa Italiana The Supercoppa Italiana ( en, Italian Super Cup) is an annual 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 in the previous seaso ...

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; 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 ...

: 1995–96

References

External links

Career profile
*
Profile at FIGC.it
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fusi, Luca 1963 births Living people Sportspeople from Lecco Footballers from the Province of Lecco Italian men's footballers Italian football managers Men's association football midfielders Men's association football defenders Italy men's international footballers UEFA Euro 1988 players Italian expatriate men's footballers Como 1907 players UC Sampdoria players SSC Napoli players Torino FC players Juventus FC players FC Lugano players Serie A players Serie B players Expatriate men's footballers in Switzerland AC Bellaria Igea Marina managers UEFA Cup winning players