Filippo Inzaghi

Early career

Inzaghi's favourite footballers as a child were Paolo Rossi and Marco van Basten. The elder brother of fellow footballer Simone Inzaghi, he got his start playing for hometown club Piacenza as a teenager in 1991, but made only two league appearances before being loaned to Serie C1 side Leffe, with whom he scored an impressive 13 goals in 21 matches. In 1993, Inzaghi moved to Serie B club Hellas Verona and scored 13 goals in 36 league appearances. Upon his return to Piacenza, he scored 15 times in 37 games helping his team win Serie B and proving himself to be an exciting young prospect. Inzaghi made his Serie A debut when he transferred to Parma in 1995, but scored only twice in 15 league matches. One of these two goals came against one of his former clubs, Piacenza, literally "making him cry". He added another two goals in European competitions that season. In the following season, he moved on to Atalanta, finishing as the Capocannoniere (Serie A's top scorer) with 24 goals after scoring against every team in the league. He was crowned Serie A Young Footballer of the Year and served as team captain in the last game of the season.

Juventus

Inzaghi, however, was soon on the move once again to his sixth team in seven seasons, this time to Juventus for a reported 23 billion lire. He formed a formidable attacking partnership along with Alessandro Del Piero and Zinedine Zidane, a tandem which would last for four seasons, under managers Marcello…

Between 1993 and 1996, Inzaghi made 14 appearances for the Italy under-21 team, scoring three goals; he was also a member of the Italy under-21 squad that won the 1994 UEFA European Under-21 Championship. Inzaghi earned his first senior cap for Italy in the Tournoi de France, against Brazil on 8 June 1997, under his former under-21 manager Cesare Maldini, and provided an assist to goalscorer Alessandro Del Piero. Italy went on to draw 3–3. He scored his first goal for Italy on 18 November 1998, in a 2–2 friendly draw against Spain; he has since scored 25 goals in 57 appearances. He was called up for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Euro 2000, the 2002 World Cup and the 2006 World Cup.

Although Inzaghi went scoreless throughout the 1998 World Cup, as he was mainly deployed as a substitute, he came off the bench to set up a goal for Roberto Baggio in Italy's final group match against Austria, which ended in a 2–1 win, and allowed Italy to top their group; Italy were knocked out in the quarter-finals on penalties to hosts and eventual champions France. At Euro 2000, he was one of Italy's starting strikers under the new Italy manager Dino Zoff. He scored two goals throughout the tournament; his first came from a penalty, in Italy's 2–1 opening group win over Turkey, in which he was named man of the match, while his second came in a 2–0 win over Romania in the quarter-finals of the competition; he also set up Stefano Fiore's goal in a 2–0 win over co-hosts Belgium in his nation's second…

Inzaghi was an intelligent, extremely fast, agile, and opportunistic player, with excellent reactions and a lanky, slender physique; although not very technically gifted, he was known for his great skill in taking advantage of the carelessness of his opponents, his excellent positional sense in the area, and his eye for goal, making a name for himself as a "goal poacher", due to his style of play and tendency to operate mainly in the penalty box, as well as his timing and ability to find spaces and anticipate opponents to get on the end of passes. These qualities, along with his finishing ability with both his head and feet, made him one of the most prolific strikers of the past decades. Inzaghi was described as a player who lived on the offside line. When he was first called up to the national team, the other Italian players were surprised at his lack of technical accomplishment, but came to accept him because he scored so frequently. Johan Cruyff described this contrast—"Look, actually he can't play football at all. He's just always in the right position." Fans nicknamed him Superpippo, the Italian name for Super Goof, the superhero alter ego of cartoon character Goofy (Pippo being a common hypocorism of his first name Filippo). Tactically, Inzaghi was noted for his vision and ability to read the game, as well as his outstanding offensive movement off the ball, ability to play off the shoulders of the last defender, and to time his attacking runs to beat the offside trap,…

AC Milan

Inzaghi started his coaching career at the beginning of the 2012–13 season, signing a two-year deal as the manager of AC Milan's Allievi (under-17) team. On 9 June 2014, Inzaghi was named manager of Milan's first team after the dismissal of his former Rossoneri teammate Clarence Seedorf. In Inzaghi's first match as a manager in Serie A on 31 August, Milan defeated Lazio 3–1 at the San Siro. Inzaghi then led Milan to a second consecutive win in a match that ended with a 5–4 Milan win against Parma. On 4 June 2015 Adriano Galliani, the CEO of Milan, announced that Inzaghi would not be the coach for next season. He was officially dismissed on 16 June 2015.

Venezia

On 7 June 2016, Inzaghi was appointed as the new coach of ambitious Lega Pro club Venezia. On 19 April 2017, after beating Parma to top spot, he won promotion to Serie B as champions. He also won the Coppa Italia Lega Pro in the same season. During the 2017–18 season, Inzaghi guided the Venetians to a fifth-place finish in Serie B, finishing in the playoff positions to earn promotion to Serie A. After eliminating Perugia (coached by his former teammate Alessandro Nesta) in the preliminary round, his team was defeated by Palermo in the semi-finals.

Bologna

On 13 June 2018, Inzaghi was announced as the new head coach of top-flight Bologna, taking over from Roberto Donadoni. He faced a Lazio side coached by his younger brother Simone in an eventual 0–2 defeat on 26 December.…