Ciro Ferrara

Ciro Ferrara (born February 11, 1967) is an Italian former football defender. He has spent his career at Napoli and Juventus, having recently become the latter's manager following the sacking of Claudio Ranieri.

Career

A native of Naples, Ferrara started his career at SSC Napoli before moving to Juventus in 1994. He became captain soon after joining the team, and soon became one of the most experienced and decorated players, winning seven Serie A championships (five with Juventus, two with Napoli - this excludes the 2004/05 title taken away from Juventus due to the match-fixing scandal), two Italian Cups (one with each team), three Italian Super Cups (two with Juventus, one with Napoli) and several European competitions (including the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup, Intercontinental Cup and European Super Cup). He scored one of Napoli's goals as they won the 1989 UEFA Cup Final.

When playing at SSC Napoli he played with the football legend Diego Maradona. He even lived nextdoor to him at the time he played at Napoli.

Since 2000, Ferrara's role on Juventus declined; although he was an experienced and dominating defender, he generally played as a substitute—his role as captain was taken over by fellow Italian Alessandro Del Piero. In 1996-97, one of his peak seasons, he scored four goals in 32 Serie A competitions, while also being capped eight times internationally. Ironically, his first professional match, while at Napoli, was played against Juventus (it was a 0-0 draw). He retired from football after the 2004-05 season.

International

For Italy, Ferrara was capped 49 times and played one game each at the 1990 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2000. His brilliance however was never truly realised at international level despite this impressive tally of caps. There are two reasons for this. First of all Italy had a host of other world class players in his position that often blocked his route. These include Franco Baresi, Alessandro Costacurta, Mauro Tassotti, Pietro Vierchowod, Riccardo Ferri, Giuseppe Bergomi, Paolo Maldini, and later in his career Fabio Cannavaro, and Alessandro Nesta. Secondly Ferrara was very unfortunate with injuries. This was most notable in the build up to the 1998 World Cup in France. Ferrara, aged 31 at the time, was at the peak of his career, and had just had 3 superb seasons at Juventus. In 96-97 and 97-98 he was quite possibly the best defender in Italy, and he was a regular in the Italy line-up. However Ferrara suffered a serious injury several weeks before the World Cup and missed the tournament. He was replaced by Nesta. From this time on Ferrara was a reserve for Italy (and also for Juventus) whereas Cannavaro went on to achieve legendary status. Had Ferrara not suffered this injury, many believe he would have been one of the stars of France '98 as he was in the peak of his career. For this reason he is not so well-known outside his native-country, but within Italy he is regarded as just another in a long-line of world class Italian defenders.

Coaching career

Ciro Ferrara was part of the Italian technical staff for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. After the World Cup, he became part of Juventus' staff joining former defending teammate Gianluca Pessotto, with Ferrara being named youth system chief (responsabile settore giovanile), dealing mostly with organisational aspects of the Juve academy. On July 2008 Ciro Ferrara took the UEFA Pro coaching badges following training at Coverciano, Florence.^[1]

Following a string of seven league games without a win under Claudio Ranieri, Ferrara was named interim head coach of Juventus on May 18, 2009 for the remaining two weeks of the season, with the goal of maintaining second place in the league table, and the possibility of being appointed on a full-time basis for a longer period. In his two games as caretaker manager, he led Juventus to two wins (against Siena and Lazio) guiding the bianconeri to become league runners-up. Following these results, he emerged as a strong candidate for the Juventus head coaching position in the following 2009–10 season. On June 5 at 19:00, Juventus formally announced the appointment of Ciro Ferrara as permanent head coach for the 2009–10 season.^[2]

Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (May 2009)

- Ferrara lived next door to Diego Maradona during his time at Napoli.

- Ferrara is renowned for his excellent singing voice, which can be heard on the Juventus squad's recording of the Lucio Battisti classic 'Il Mio Canto Libero'.

Honours

• 7 Italian Championships: 1986/87, 1989/90, 1994/95, 1996/97, 1997/98, 2001/02, 2002/03
• 1 Champions League: 1996
• 1 Intercontinental Cup: 1996
• 1 European Super Cup: 1996
• 1 UEFA Cup: 1988/89
• 2 Coppa Italia: 1986-87, 1994/95
• 5 Italian Super Cups: 1990, 1995, 1997, 2002, 2003
• 1 Intertoto Cup: 1999

References

v • d • e Italy squad – UEFA Euro 1988 semi-finalists 1 Zenga • 2 Baresi • 3 Bergomi • 4 Cravero • 5 Ferrara • 6 Ferri • 7 Francini • 8 Maldini • 9 Ancelotti • 10 De Agostini • 11 De Napoli • 12 Tacconi • 13 Fusi • 14 Giannini • 15 Romano • 16 Altobelli • 17 Donadoni • 18 Mancini • 19 Rizzitelli • 20 Vialli • Coach: Vicini

v • d • e Italy squad – 1990 FIFA World Cup Third Place 1 Zenga • 2 Baresi • 3 Bergomi • 4 De Agostini • 5 Ferrara • 6 Ferri • 7 Maldini • 8 Vierchowod • 9 Ancelotti • 10 Berti • 11 De Napoli • 12 Tacconi • 13 Giannini • 14 Marocchi • 15 Baggio • 16 Carnevale • 17 Donadoni • 18 Mancini • 19 Schillaci • 20 Serena • 21 Vialli • 22 Pagliuca • Coach: Vicini

v • d • e Italy squad – UEFA Euro 2000 Runners-up 1 Abbiati • 2 Ferrara • 3 Maldini • 4 Albertini • 5 Cannavaro • 6 Negro • 7 Di Livio • 8 Conte • 9 Inzaghi • 10 Del Piero • 11 Pessotto • 12 Toldo • 13 Nesta • 14 Di Biagio • 15 Iuliano • 16 Ambrosini • 17 Zambrotta • 18 Fiore • 19 Montella • 20 Totti • 21 Delvecchio • 22 Antonioli • Coach: Zoff