Alessandro Pistone

Alessandro Pistone (born July 27, 1975 in Milan) is a former Italian footballer.

Club career

Early career

Pistone started his career at Solbiatese and Crevalcore, two small Italian teams who in recent years have slid to the lowest tier of professional Italian football, before moving to Vicenza for the duration of the 1995–96 season. He transferred to Internazionale for season 1996–97, playing in the 1997 UEFA Cup Final, which Inter lost.

Newcastle United

After an impressive season at Internazionale, Newcastle United manager Kenny Dalglish snapped Pistone up for £4.5 million in July 1997. He played in the 1998 FA Cup Final against Arsenal, which Newcastle United lost. After Dalglish was sacked, Pistone was frozen out of the team by his replacement Ruud Gullit and banished to the reserve team along with former club captain Rob Lee as well as being sent out on loan to Venezia. After Gullit was sacked, Pistone was restored to the first team by Bobby Robson,^[1] before being sold to Everton in 2000. In his time at Newcastle he scored one league goal against Middlesbrough in May 2000.^[2]

Everton

Pistone appeared in the first match of the 2000–01 season, before being beset by a year full of injuries, including a six-month layoff for a knee injury. Throughout the following season he also suffered a major injury, thus missing most of the campaign. During the next season, however, he notched his first goal for the club against Bolton Wanderers.^[3]

Though initially his future looked bleak after David Moyes would only offer Pistone a one year contract which Pistone refused to sign but he later offered a two year contract due to a left-back crisis and having played in the vast majority of games through 2004–05, he returned to the first-team lineup for the 2005–06 season. However he soon received a cruciate knee ligament injury which ended his season prematurely.

Pistone was released by Everton at the end of the 2006–07 season on 14 May 2007.^[4]

Free Agent

After being released by Everton, on 31 August 2007 it was confirmed by Middlesbrough manager Gareth Southgate that Pistone was having a trial at the Premier League club and, as Pistone was a free agent, he could be signed after the transfer deadline, giving Southgate more time to decide. It was reported on 9 September 2007 that Southgate had decided against offering Pistone a contract. Pistone also went on trial with Watford but could not convince Aidy Boothroyd to offer him a contract.[1].

R.A.E.C. Mons

After failing to secure a contract with a club in England, Pistone spent a week on trial for Belgian club R.A.E.C. Mons. After impressing manager Geo Van Pyperzeele, Pistone signed for the club on 6 December 2007 until the end of the season, and was given the number 4 jersey. After signing for the club, Pistone was quoted as saying "I signed here because I felt that the club immediately believed in me. R.A.E.C. Mons gives me the opportunity to play at a certain level and, very importantly, I felt the confidence of the club and the direction towards me". However, despite making four appearances for the club, Pistone left R.A.E.C. Mons at the end of the 2007-2008 season.

Post-football

Since retiring from football, Pistone has made a number of appearances on the Italian Poker Circuit, and participated in the eight Annual Night of Aces event in 2010 [2].

International career

With the Italian Under-21 national team he won in 1996 the European Under-21 Championship. He also played for Italy at the 1996 Olympics.

Notes

External links

• Alessandro Pistone career stats at Soccerbase
• FIGC (Italian)

v t e Italy squad – 1996 Summer Olympics 1 Pagliuca 2 Panucci 3 Nesta 4 Cannavaro 5 Galante 6 Fresi 7 Ametrano 8 Crippa 9 Branca 10 Brambilla 11 Delvecchio 12 Buffon 13 Pistone 14 Tommasi 15 Pecchia 16 Morfeo 17 Lucarelli 18 Bernardini 19 Sartor Coach: Maldini