Enrico Chiesa
Encyclopedia
Enrico Chiesa is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
) is an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
football coach and former striker
Striker
Forwards, also known as strikers, are the players on a team in association football who play nearest to the opposing team's goal, and are therefore principally responsible for scoring goals...
.
Chiesa performed regularly at Serie A
Serie A
Serie A , now called Serie A TIM due to sponsorship by Telecom Italia, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and has been operating for over eighty years since 1929. It had been organized by Lega Calcio until 2010, but a new...
level for over a decade, and was also part of the Italy national football team
Italy national football team
The Italy National Football Team , represents Italy in association football and is controlled by the Italian Football Federation , the governing body for football in Italy. Italy is the second most successful national team in the history of the World Cup having won four titles , just one fewer than...
. He was considered one of the most exciting and dynamic strikers in Italy during the mid 90's.
Club
Chiesa moved his early playing footsteps at amateur club Pontedecimo (1986–87). He then moved to SampdoriaU.C. Sampdoria
Unione Calcio Sampdoria is an Italian association 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, Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria...
, team for which he made his debut on April 16, 1989 in a 1-0 loss at AS Roma
A.S. Roma
Associazione Sportiva Roma, commonly referred to as simply Roma, is a professional Italian football club based in Rome. Founded by a merger in 1927, Roma have participated in the top-tier of Italian football for all of their existence but one season in the early 50s...
in the Serie A 1988-89. He then played for Teramo
Teramo Calcio
Società Sportiva Dilettantistica Teramo Calcio is an Italian association football club, based in Teramo, Abruzzo. It is currently in the season 2011–12 playing in Serie D, the fourth division of Italian football...
of Serie C2
Serie C2
Lega Pro Seconda Divisione is the name of the fourth highest football league in Italy, the lowest with a professional status. Usually it consists of 54 teams, but in the season 2010–11 the teams are only 49 divided geographically into three divisions of 17, 16 and 16 teams each...
and successively Chieti of Serie C1
Serie C1
Lega Pro Prima Divisione is the name of the third highest football league in Italy. It consists of 36 teams, divided geographically into two divisions of 18 teams each. Until 2008 it was known as Serie C1....
before returning at Sampdoria on 1992. Failing to impress, he then joined Modena
Modena F.C.
Modena Football Club is an Italian football club based in Modena, Emilia-Romagna. The club was formed in 1912 and currently plays in Italian Serie B, after being relegated from a two year period in Serie A in the year 2004. The team's previous stay in Italy's top division ended in 1964. The team...
in 1993-94 and Cremonese
U.S. Cremonese
Unione Sportiva Cremonese is an Italian football club, based in Cremona. The club was founded in 1903. Cremonese played the 2005/2006 season in Serie B, having won Serie C1/A the previous season. However, in the 2005/2006 Serie B campaign, Cremonese came out twenty-first, being therefore relegated...
in 1994-95, where he scored 14 goals in their Serie A campaign. In 1995 he returned again with the blucerchiati, forming a notable forward duo with Roberto Mancini
Roberto Mancini
Roberto Mancini is an Italian football manager, formerly an international player and current manager of Premier League club Manchester City.As a player Mancini was best known for his time at Sampdoria, where he played more than 550 matches, and helped them win the Serie A league title, four Coppa...
and scoring 22 goals in 27 matches. In 1996 he was signed by rising club Parma
Parma F.C.
Parma Football Club , commonly referred to as just Parma, is an Italian professional football club based in Parma, Emilia–Romagna that will compete in Serie A for the 2011–12 season, having finished in twelfth position last season. Founded as Verdi Foot Ball Club in July 1913, the club changed its...
, where he won a UEFA Cup
UEFA Cup
The UEFA Europa League is an annual association football cup competition organised by UEFA since 1971 for eligible European football clubs. It is the second most prestigious European club football contest after the UEFA Champions League...
and a Coppa Italia
Coppa Italia
The Coppa Italia is an Italian football annual cup competition. Its first edition was held in 1922, but the second champions were not crowned until 1936. Roma and Juventus lead the way with nine wins. Roma has contested more finals, 16, while Torino and Juventus follow with 13...
becoming one of the best forwards in Italian football, (when not injured or out of form) in a successful partnership with Hernán Crespo
Hernán Crespo
Hernán Jorge Crespo is an Argentine footballer who plays for Parma in the Italian Serie A. Crespo has scored over 300 goals in a career spanning 18 years. His honors include an Olympic Games silver medal, a Copa Libertadores, an English Premier League title and three Scudettos. He was topscorer in...
, the duo averaging 10-15 goals a season each. They also got a goal each in the 1999 UEFA Cup Final
1999 UEFA Cup Final
The 1999 UEFA Cup Final a football match that took place at Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, on 12 May 1999 between Parma A.C. of Italy and Olympique de Marseille of France. Parma won the match 3–0...
victory over Marseille.
In 1999 he was signed by Fiorentina
ACF Fiorentina
ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as simply Fiorentina, is a professional Italian football club from Florence, Tuscany. Founded by a merger in 1926, Fiorentina have played at the top level of Italian football for the majority of their existence; only four clubs have played in more Serie A...
, a team looking to expand and bring in better players, in an attempt to keep club captain and talisman Gabriel Batistuta
Gabriel Batistuta
Gabriel Omar Batistuta , nicknamed Batigol, is a former professional footballer. The prolific Argentine striker played most of his club football at Fiorentina in Italy, and he is the tenth top scorer of all-time in the Italian Serie A league, with 184 goals in 318 matches...
. Despite making regular appearances in his first season for La Viola, Chiesa was fighting for a place with Predrag Mijatovic
Predrag Mijatovic
Predrag "Peđa" Mijatović is a Montenegrin football player and former sports director of Real Madrid. He is considered one of Yugoslavia's best players of the 1990s. He was acclaimed as the best athlete of Yugoslavia in 1997...
among others, and also had spells where he was out of form, and in the end only managed 6 goals in the league. In 2000-01
Serie A 2000-01
In the 2000-01 season, Serie A, the major football Italian professional league, was composed by 18 teams, for the 13th consecutive time from season 1988-89....
, Batistuta had left to go to AS Roma and Fiorentina were plagued with injuries and financial problems; Chiesa became the main striker for the club, and scored 22 goals in 30 matches, finishing amongst the top 5 highest scorers in the league. After a very hard 2001-02 campaign, in which Chiesa played only five matches due to a serious knee injury, he moved to Lazio
S.S. Lazio
Società Sportiva Lazio, commonly referred to as Lazio, is a professional Italian football club based in Rome. The team, founded in 1900, play in the Serie A and have spent most of their history in the top tier of Italian football...
, where he however failed to play at his personal best.
In 2003 he joined Siena
A.C. Siena
Associazione Calcio Siena is an Italian football club based in Siena.The club currently plays in Serie A, having gained promotion from Serie B at the end of the 2010-2011 season....
and is considered a fan favourite also because of having been a key member of them in their whole Serie A history. Despite a very poor 2006-07 season
Serie A 2006-07
The Serie A 2006–2007 season began September 10, 2006. It was scheduled to begin on August 26 and 27, but was then postponed due to the Serie A scandal of 2006. It is the 104th Italian championship ever held, the first without the presence of Juventus, and the 75th Serie A league, the first...
in which Chiesa was not able to score a single goal, he was confirmed by the club and new trainer Andrea Mandorlini
Andrea Mandorlini
Andrea Mandorlini is an Italian football manager and former defender, currently in charge as head coach of Verona.-Playing career:...
explicitly stated he is still important to the team, and that he expects at least 15 goals by him in their 2007-08 Serie A
Serie A 2007-08
The 2007-08 Serie A football season was the seventy-sixth since its establishment, and started on August 26, 2007 and ended on May 18, 2008. Internazionale successfully defended the championship on the final day of the season, finishing first with 85 points, three ahead of Roma.-Plusvalenze...
campaign. However, he played only twice, scoring no goals before he was signed by Figline in Lega Pro Second Division
Lega Pro Seconda Divisione 2008-09
The 2008–09 Lega Pro Seconda Divisione season will be the thirty-first football league season of Italian Lega Pro Seconda Divisione since its establishment in 1978, and the first since the renaming from Serie C2 to Lega Pro....
. He scored five goals with Figline, thus giving his contribution to the team's promotion to the upper level, Lega Pro Prima Divisione. In the following season, his last as a footballer, he played a limited number of games due to suffering a fractured leg, an injury who forced him to stay out of contention for most of the season.
International
Chiesa played for the Italian teamItaly national football team
The Italy National Football Team , represents Italy in association football and is controlled by the Italian Football Federation , the governing body for football in Italy. Italy is the second most successful national team in the history of the World Cup having won four titles , just one fewer than...
from 1996 to 2001, collecting a total of 22 caps with 7 goals. He was also selected to play the UEFA Euro 1996 and the 1998 FIFA World Cup
1998 FIFA World Cup
The 1998 FIFA World Cup, the 16th FIFA World Cup, was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. France was chosen as host nation by FIFA on 2 July 1992. The tournament was won by France, who beat Brazil 3-0 in the final...
.