Leonardo Bonucci

Inter Milan

Bonucci started his career in the youth ranks of his hometown club Viterbese but was loaned to Inter Milan in the summer of 2005. He played a number of pre-season friendlies for the Inter first team. He then became a member of the Inter U20 team. On 14 May 2006, Bonucci made his Serie A debut in the last match of the 2005–06 season, in a 2–2 away draw against Cagliari, which was Inter's 3,500th competitive match. On 7 July 2006, Inter bought Bonucci outright. He played his first Coppa Italia match against Messina on 9 November 2006 when he came off the bench for Fabio Grosso in the 86th minute. Bonucci featured in two more Coppa Italia games for Inter that season when he was brought on for the substituted Walter Samuel at half-time during the quarter-final second leg match against Empoli, and as a starter in the semi-final second leg tie against Sampdoria. In January 2007, Inter sold 50% of Bonucci's registration rights to Treviso, along with 50% of the registration rights for fellow Primavera team-mate Daniel Maa Boumsong. At that time Bonucci was tagged for a peppercorn fee of €500. Bonucci subsequently remained at Inter until 30 June 2007 while Maa Boumsong returned from Treviso where he spent the first half of the season on loan. During Bonucci's last season with the Inter's youth side, he won the Campionato Nazionale Primavera (the national youth league title).

Treviso and Pisa

On 1 July 2007, Bonucci and Maa Boumsong formally became…

Youth career

At youth level, Bonucci played for the Italy national under-21 football B team. He was called-up for a friendlies against Renate on 6 November 2007, and against the Under-20 Serie C representative team on 4 December 2007. He was also capped for the team in an internal friendly, which split the Under-21 Serie B team into two on 9 October 2007, on 21 October 2008, on 25 November, and on 24 March 2009, as team captain. He also received a call-up from the Italy U20 team on 31 May 2007. He was an unused substitute in the 0–1 loss to the Serie D Best XI.

2010–2014: Early senior career

Bonucci made his debut with the Italy senior team on 3 March 2010, under manager Marcello Lippi, in a friendly match against Cameroon played in Monaco, which ended in a 0–0 draw, and became one of the few debutants to have never played an official match for the national youth teams. He was included by Lippi in the starting line-up along with national team regulars Fabio Cannavaro and Giorgio Chiellini, forming a three-man defensive line in Lippi's 3–4–3 formation.

Due to his performances during the 2009–10 season, Bonucci was included in the Italy squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He scored his first international goal on 3 June 2010, in a 1–2 friendly loss against Mexico, in a pre-tournament friendly match in Brussels. In the World Cup, he appeared as an unused substitute for all three of Italy's matches, as they suffered a first-round elimination, failing to win a…

A former midfielder who was usually deployed as ball-playing centre-back in a three-man defence (although he was also capable of playing in a four-man defence, both in the centre or out wide), Bonucci was primarily known for his technique, passing range, and his ability to launch an attack from the back with long passes. Although he was not the quickest player over short distances, he was a tall, mobile, and strong defender, with a good positional sense, as well as good anticipation, solid tackling, and an ability to read the game and mark opponents, on top of his ball skills; he also excelled in the air, and frequently posed a goal threat from set pieces. Despite having been considered to be a talented and promising young defender, he was also criticised by certain pundits for being inconsistent and prone to errors or lapses in concentration in his youth, which were dubbed "Bonucciate" in the Italian media, a reference to their similarity to Cesare Maldini's Maldinate; in 2021, the neologism bonucciata was even included in the Italian encyclopedia Treccani. However, he showed notable improvements during the 2014–15 season, and established himself as one of the best defenders in world football, also drawing praise from manager Pep Guardiola, who described Bonucci as one of his "favourite ever players". In 2016, Mario Sconcerti of Il Corriere della Sera ranked Bonucci among the greatest Italian defenders of all time. His unique playing style led Giovanni Galli to compare him…

On 18 June 2011, Bonucci married Martina Maccari (b. 19 November 1985), a former model and blogger, whom he first met in 2008 through a mutual friend. They have two sons, Lorenzo (b. July 2012) and Matteo (b. May 2014), and one daughter, Matilda (b. February 2019). Although Bonucci played for Juventus for several seasons, his eldest son, Lorenzo, supports Juventus's cross-city rivals, Torino. In July 2016, Bonucci's youngest son, Matteo underwent emergency surgery following the onset of an acute illness. In a 2017 interview with El País, Bonucci revealed that his son's illness had even led him to think about quitting football, commenting:

"For three or four months, my head was just not in the right place, it's the head that gets the legs moving. For around 15 days after the surgery, until I started to see him improving, I was just not interested in training or anything to do with football. I've always hated hospitals and tried to avoid them, but at that time I had to be there and I was really struggling to be calm. Matteo is much better now and our family feels more united than ever. Yes, I thought about quitting. Football was just not my priority at that moment. You see your son with so much to live for, he's asking you so many questions and why this is happening to him... and I had no answers. Priorities change at those times. Now I tell myself that I am lucky. Everything I have done has been from the heart." Bonucci's older brother, Riccardo (b. November 1982), was also…