Luciano Spalletti

Born in Certaldo, Metropolitan City of Florence, Spalletti started his career as a semi-professional footballer in his mid-20s. Despite a relatively old age for a professional debut, he played for several Serie C teams such as Entella, Spezia, Viareggio and Empoli. After nearly a decade of lower-tier football in Italy, he retired in 1993 and remained at Empoli as a coach.

Early career

Spalletti's early career in management led him to struggling Empoli, where he served as head coach from July 1993 to June 1998. He led the Tuscan side to consecutive promotions from Serie C1 to the top-flight Serie A. Spalletti then coached Sampdoria from July 1998 to June 1999, and Venezia from July to October 1999. He attended the FIGC coaching school, at the Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano in 1998–99, graduating with a maximum mark of 110 cum laude; his thesis was entitled "The 3–5–2 playing system". Spalletti had two spells as head coach at Udinese. The first was between March 2001 and June 2001, the second between July 2002 and June 2005. There was a period at Ancona in between spells. At Udinese, he really began to make an impact as a manager. During the 2004–05 season, Spalletti guided Udinese to a sensational fourth-placed finish in Serie A, exceeding expectations and securing a spot in the UEFA Champions League. Spalletti became head coach of Roma in June 2005.

Roma

Such success for a traditionally unexceptional side with limited resources attracted the attention of Roma. The Giallorossi had come off a disappointing season in which four different coaches had spells in charge of the club. Spalletti was tasked with bringing order to this chaotic side. After an uninspiring first half of the 2005–06 season, he changed the team's tactics to a more offensive style rather than a defensive one. As a result, Roma climbed from 15th to 5th…

Spalletti's favoured formation while in charge of Roma was the 4–2–3–1 system, which used four defenders, two defensive midfielders, two wingers (both sides of the three), one attacking midfielder and one striker (Francesco Totti), who typically functioned also as an attacking midfielder in previous seasons. As such, the team played without any real striker, as Totti occupied what later came to be described as a false-9 role, in a 4–6–0 formation. This system proved effective for Roma upon its introduction during the 2005–06 season, as on 26 February 2006, Roma broke the Serie A record for most consecutive wins with a 2–0 victory over city rivals Lazio, following an eleven-match winning streak that started in December 2005. In this formation, he also used Simone Perrotta – normally a box-to-box midfielder – in the unorthodox role of an atypical false attacking midfielder, due to his energy and ability to make late runs, which complemented Totti's ability to provide throughballs to teammates; this decision also proved to be effective, with Perrotta scoring eight goals in the league during the 2006–07 season, while Totti finished as the golden boot winner with 26 goals. The team's offensive play was based on fluid movement and quick passing to build-attacks, centred around the distribution of midfielders David Pizarro and Alberto Aquilani. With Napoli, Spalletti also implemented an attacking-minded style, but instead used a 4–3–3 formation. Regarding his tactical approach, he…

Spalletti and his wife Tamara have three children. He owns a family farm in Tuscany, on a ridge outside Montaione.