Alberto Malesani

Malesani played as a midfielder throughout his career; although he was known for his good feet and tactical sense, his performances were often inconsistent and limited by his lack of pace and movement, and he spent his brief and unremarkable playing career in the lower divisions of Italian football. Malesani's career as player was mostly spent on a Veronese amateur team Audace S. Michele, where he obtained a promotion from Serie D to Serie C in 1976–77, appearing fourteen times during the season. He retired from playing football at the age of 24.

Early career and breakthrough at Chievo

Upon retiring, Malesani worked at Canon in Amsterdam, where he studied the Ajax Amsterdam total football training methods. His passion for coaching was so great, that on his honeymoon, he decided to go and watch Johan Cruyff's coaching sessions at Barcelona. Malesani left his job at Canon in 1990 order to pursue a coaching career at Serie C1 team Chievo for the Allievi youth squad. In 1991, he is assistant of head coach Carlo De Angelis in the first team, and in 1993 he becomes head coach himself. His first season as head coach ended in a historical promotion to Serie B for then-unknown Chievo.

Fiorentina, Parma and UEFA Cup triumph

Malesani left Chievo in 1997, after three Serie B seasons and a narrowly missed promotion in the Serie A league in order to become Fiorentina's boss, in what was his first stint in the Italian top flight. A good Fiorentina season convinced Parma to appoint Malesani as new head coach in 1998, where he won a Coppa Italia, a UEFA Cup, an Italian Super Cup and obtained two fourth places before being sacked during the 2000–01 season.

From Verona to Panathinaikos and Udinese

After losing his job at Parma, Malesani then coached Verona and Modena, failing to save the clubs from relegation in both cases; successively he moved abroad to coach Greek side Panathinaikos. Panathinaikos remains the club with the highest percentage of wins in Malesani's career to date (60%). Malesani was…

Nicknamed "Il Male" throughout his career, tactically, Malesani used an attacking style, which was inspired by the innovative style employed by Ajax during the 90s, who were coached by Dutch Manager Louis van Gaal, rather than the Italian styles popularised by Arrigo Sacchi and Nevio Scala, which were employed by many other managers in Serie A at the time, and which favoured a more balanced defensive approach. Like Van Gaal, Malesani often used a 3–4–3 formation. At Parma, he even used an asymmetrical 3–4–1–2 formation. In defence, he used an offensive sweeper in defence (Roberto Sensini) who would advance into midfield, a right-sided centre-back who would often join the attack and act as a full-back (Lilian Thuram) to assist with transitions of play, and a pure man-marking stopper as the left-sided centre-back (Fabio Cannavaro), who would mainly sit back and defend, providing balance to the team. In midfield, he used a box-to-box midfielder (Dino Baggio) who would assist at both ends, and an offensive playmaker (Stefano Fiore) behind the strikers (Enrico Chiesa and Hernán Crespo), as well as an all-round creative player in midfield (Juan Sebastián Verón), and an offensive right midfielder, who was also capable of drifting into the middle of the pitch (Diego Fuser), allowing for the right-sided centre-backs overlapping runs. Malesani also mimicked Van Gaal's use of a sweeper keeper at both Ajax and Barcelona (Gianluigi Buffon), who would not only rush out of his area to…

Chievo

Serie C1: 1993–94 Parma

Coppa Italia: 1998–99 UEFA Cup: 1998–99 Supercoppa Italiana: 1999