Gabriele Cioffi

As a player, Cioffi was a defender. He started his career with Tuscan amateurs Sestese, which was followed by several other experience in the minor Italian leagues of Serie C1 and Serie C2. In January 2005 he joined Mantova, with whom he became a fan favourite, won a Serie C1 title and made his Serie B debut during the 2005–06 season. After an impressive Serie B campaign with Mantova, he was subsequently signed by Torino, with whom he made his Serie A debut during the 2006–07 season. He left Torino after one season to join Ascoli, which he left in 2010 for AlbinoLeffe as a free agent. He retired in 2012 after two seasons with Carpi where he won the league as captain getting the promotion from Lega Pro 2 to Lega Pro 1. In his last season with the club, he lost the final for promotion to Serie B.

Early years

After his retirement, he stayed in Carpi as an assistant coach for the 2012–13 season. In July 2013, he was announced as the new head coach of Lega Pro Seconda Divisione club Gavorrano; he was fired later in November and following his departure the squad had a poor run of results. It was widely understood that the club called him back with a few games remaining in the season, and relegation being a formality, although Gabriele refused to return. He subsequently relocated to Australia and worked for two years as youth coach for Eastern United, before moving back to Italy in November 2015 to accept an offer as youth coach for the Berretti team of third division club Südtirol. He left the club in February 2016 to join Henk Ten Cate's coaching staff as assistant head coach at Al Jazira. After being an integral part of leading Al-Jazira to the President's Cup in 2016, and steering the club into returning to the Asian Champions League, Gabriele was headhunted in December 2016 and he joined the coaching staff of Gianfranco Zola at English Championship club Birmingham City. Following Zola's resignation on 17 April 2017, his entire backroom staff, including Cioffi, left Birmingham too. In October 2017, he signed as assistant manager for Al Dhafra, fighting relegation at the time. His first match on the touchline was against his previous team, Al Jazira. The team, thanks to his work, was able to achieve safety from relegation, and to have a stable position in the…