Tommaso Rocchi

Early years

Born in Venice, Rocchi began playing football in his home city and joined the youth ranks of Venezia at nine years of age. He came up through the ranks in the Venezia junior system before signing for giants Juventus in 1994. Rocchi won the Primavera title with the Turin club that year before moving up to the first team for the 1995–96 season, in which the bianconeri claimed the Champions League title. He did not make any first team appearances however, and soon left the club. From then on, Rocchi played Serie C football (mainly in Serie C1), playing in 121 matches and scoring 36 goals for Pro Patria, Fermana, Saronno and Como. Como bought Rocchi for 300 million lire (€154,937) in 1998 in co-ownership deal. In June 2000 Como bought Rocchi outright for 900 million lire (€464,811), 600 million lire (€309,874) excess the original fee. He managed to get a chance in Serie B with Treviso, which Como sold half of the registration rights to Treviso in 2000 for 1.4 billion lire (€723,040) and bought back in June 2001.

Empoli

From Treviso (via Como), Rocchi moved to Tuscany with Empoli, also in Serie B at the time. With Empoli, Rocchi made over 100 appearances, and scored a total of 29 goals, 16 of which came in Serie A, where Rocchi had put in some decent performances during the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons. He scored a winner against Inter Milan on 18 January 2004, and a week later, he scored a hattrick against original club Juventus in a 3–3 draw.

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Club

International

Rocchi has represented Italy at youth level several times. In August 2006, following Italy's fourth FIFA World Cup title, new Azzurri boss Roberto Donadoni called Rocchi up to the squad as a reward for his exceptional scoring record in Serie A. He made his debut against Croatia in the 2–0 loss at 29 years of age. Rocchi played two more matches for the national team on the road to Euro 2008 but did not make the squad for the final tournament. He was selected as the only overage player in Pierluigi Casiraghi's Olympic team to play at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. He scored on his debut against South Korea on 10 August, contributing in a 3–0 win which helped Italy to finish top in the Group D. However, he picked up an injury during the match, a fracture in fibula, which forced him to abandon the tournament. He was replaced by Antonio Candreva.

Lazio

Coppa Italia: 2008–09 Supercoppa Italiana: 2009