Ubaldo Righetti (; born 1 March 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 ...

who played as a defender; he was usually deployed as a centre-back.

Club career

Righetti played 10 seasons in the Italian

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 ...

for

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 ...

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 ...

U.S. Lecce Unione Sportiva Lecce, commonly referred to as Lecce (), is an Italian football club based in Lecce, Apulia. The club play in Serie A in the 2022–23 season, the top level of the Italian football pyramid, having been promoted from Serie B. ...

, Bari, and Delfino Pescara 1936. He is mostly remembered for his time with Roma under manager

Nils Liedholm Nils Erik Liedholm (; 8 October 1922 – 5 November 2007) was a Swedish football midfielder and coach. ''Il Barone'' (The Baron), as he is affectionately known in Italy, was renowned for being part of the Swedish "Gre-No-Li" trio of strikers al ...

(1980–1987), the club with which he made his debut, winning the Serie A title during the 1982–83 season, as well as three

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 ...

titles, in 1981, 1984, and

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter ...

. During his Roma career, he also helped the club to reach the final of the

1983–84 European Cup The 1983–84 season of the European Cup football club tournament was won for a fourth time by Liverpool in a penalty shootout in the final against Roma. The game had finished 1–1. Phil Neal had scored for Liverpool and Roberto Pruzzo for Rom ...

; he scored in the resulting penalty shootout that Roma eventually lost to

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

in the

1984 European Cup Final The 1984 European Cup Final was an association football match between Liverpool of England and Roma of Italy on 30 May 1984 at the Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy. It was the final match of the 1983–84 season of Europe's premier cup competition, ...

. Due to his performances in the European Cup with Roma that season, he notably won the

Bravo Award The Bravo Award was an annual award which was handed out by the Italian magazine ''Guerin Sportivo'' to the most outstanding young European footballer. The first winner of the award was Englishman Jimmy Case. The first non-European to win the ...

in 1984, which is awarded to the best Under-23 played in European Competitions. Despite his talent, Righetti was accused of never fulfilling his potential demonstrated in earlier years, and the later part of his career was much less successful. In 1987, he transferred to Udinese for a

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

, and he was subsequently sent 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 ...

side Lecce; during his time with the club, he was sent briefly on loan to local side Bari, with which he won the

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-Hunga ...

in 1990, later moving to Pescara the following season. He ended his career after four seasons with the Serie B club, helping the club to obtain promotion to

during the 1991–92 season, although they would once again be relegated to Serie B the following season. He ended his career with the club in Serie B after the 1993–94 season.

International career

Righetti also made 8 appearances for the Italian national team throughout his career, between 1983–85, under manager

Enzo Bearzot Enzo Bearzot (; 26 September 1927 – 21 December 2010) was an Italian professional football player and manager. A defender and midfielder, he led the Italy national team to victory in the 1982 FIFA World Cup. Nicknamed ''Vecio'' (standard I ...

After retirement

Following his retirement he briefly attempted to pursue a coaching career. He currently works as a commentator for

RAI RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

Honours

Club

Roma *

: 1982–83 *

: 1980–81, 1983–84, 1985–86 Bari *

: 1990

Individual

: 1984

References

External links

* *
Profile at FIGC.it
Living people 1963 births Sportspeople from the Province of Latina Association football defenders Italian footballers Italy international footballers Italy youth international footballers Italy under-21 international footballers Serie A players Serie B players A.S. Roma players Udinese Calcio players U.S. Lecce players Delfino Pescara 1936 players Footballers from Lazio {{Italy-footy-defender-1960s-stub