Roberto Galia (; born 16 March 1963) is an Italian professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

coach and a former player, who played as a defender and as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Club career

Roberto Galia made his

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

debut with

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label=Comasco dialect, Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and ...

as a full-back on 10 May 1981, in a 1–0 home defeat to

Napoli Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

. He notably scored the decisive goal in a 2–1 against

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

which saved his club from relegation on the final match-day that

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

, although the following season, he was unable to save his club from

relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

. He transferred to

Sampdoria Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly referred to as Sampdoria (), is an Italian professional football club based in Genoa. The club was formed in 1946 from the merger of two existing sports clubs whose roots can be traced back to the 1890s, ...

in 1983, where he spent three seasons as a permanent member of the starting line-up, winning the 1984–85 Coppa Italia. In 1986, he moved to Hellas Verona under

Osvaldo Bagnoli Osvaldo Bagnoli (born 3 July 1935) is an Italian former football coach and player who played as a midfielder. Playing career Born in the Bovisa district of Milan, Bagnoli began his professional career as a midfielder with his hometown club A.C ...

, where he was deployed as a

defensive midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. In 1988, Galia moved to

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

; during his time at the club, he played and scored in the

1990 UEFA Cup Final The 1990 UEFA Cup Final was an association football tie played on 2 May 1990 and 16 May 1990 between Juventus and Fiorentina of Italy. Juventus won 3–1 on aggregate. This was the first final between two Italian sides in the UEFA competit ...

, helping Juventus to win the title over

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the actual club was refounded in August 2002 fo ...

. He also won the

Coppa Italia The ("Italy Cup") is an annual knockout cup competition in Italian football organized by the FIGC until the 2009–10 season and the Lega Serie A ever since. History The beginning of the tournament was turbulent, due to the complexity of ...

that

, scoring the decisive goal in the final against

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, as well as another

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

title with the club in 1993. In 1994, he moved to Ascoli at the age of 31, only remaining with the club until November, before moving back to Como in 1995 for three seasons, playing in

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie Balkrishna Industries, BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 ...

and

Serie C1 Lega Pro Prima Divisione was the third highest football (soccer), football league in Italy. It consisted of 33 teams, divided geographically into two divisions of 16 and 17 teams for group A and B respectively. Until 2008 it was known as Serie C1 ...

with the club, before retiring in 1997, winning the

Coppa Italia Serie C Coppa Italia Serie C ( it, Serie C Italian Cup), formerly named Coppa Italia Lega Pro, is a straight knock-out based competition involving teams from Serie C in Italian football first held in 1972. Format There are a total of six rounds in the ...

. In total, he amassed 300 appearances and 15 goals in Serie A, 65 appearances and 6 goals in Serie B, and 54 appearances in Serie C1. Following his retirement, he worked as a football coach.

International career

Galia represented

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

on three occasions under

Arrigo Sacchi Arrigo Sacchi (born 1 April 1946) is an Italian former professional football coach. He has twice managed AC Milan (1987–1991, 1996–1997), with great success. He won the Serie A title in his 1987–88 debut season and then dominated European ...

, all while taking part in the

1992 U.S. Cup The 1992 United States Cup (U.S. Cup) was a United States Soccer Federation (USSF) organized international football tournament which took place in May and June 1992. This was the inaugural U.S. Cup, a tournament which ran until 2000, except for ...

. He also represented Italy at the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...

, where the team reached the semi-finals, finishing in fourth place.

Honours

Sampdoria *

: 1984–85 Juventus *

: 1989–90 *

: 1989–90, 1992–93

References

External links

* * 1963 births Living people People from Trapani Sportspeople from the Province of Trapani Italian footballers Footballers from Sicily Association football midfielders Como 1907 players U.C. Sampdoria players Hellas Verona F.C. players Juventus F.C. players Italy international footballers Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Olympic footballers of Italy Footballers at the 1988 Summer Olympics Italian football managers FC Chiasso managers UEFA Cup winning players {{Italy-footy-midfielder-1960s-stub