Luciano Spalletti

Luciano Spalletti is an Italian football coach and a former player. He was born on 7 March 1959 in Certaldo, Italy.

As a player, Spalletti featured as a midfielder for such Italian teams as Entella, Spezia, Viareggio and Empoli between 1978 and 1993.

He began his coaching career with Empoli in 1995. It was to Spalletti’s immense credit that the club had two successive promotions from Serie C1 to Serie A. However, it was at Udinese where his coaching career really took off as in the 2004/05 season the club made a surprise run to the fourth place in Serie A.

In 2005, Spalletti moved to rule the roost at Roma. The capital club saw four different coaches in the previous season and needed a reliable supremo. In the 2005/06 campaign, he changed the team’s tactics from defensive to attacking. At the end of 2006, Spalletti was even elected Serie A Coach of the Year and helped his side to break into the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals. In the 2008/09 season, his career at Roma went sour as the club finished 6th in Serie A and only could qualify for the UEFA Europa League.

In December 2009, Italian coach joined Zenit. Under Spalletti the club won the Russian Cup trophy in May 2010 and became the Russian Premier League champion in 2010 and in the 2011/12 season.

In March 2014 Spalletti was released from the Russian club following a downfall in performance.