Francesco Rizzo (; 30 May 1943 – 17 July 2022) was an Italian

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played 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

Born in Rovito, in the province of Cosenza, Rizzo began playing football with Cosenza. After spells with Milan and Alessandria, he joined Cagliari where he 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 Cop ...

debut against Fiorentina on 29 November 1964. During his club career he played for Cosenza, Alessandria, Cagliari,

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 fol ...

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, 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 1 ...

Catanzaro Catanzaro (, or ; scn, label= Catanzarese, Catanzaru ; , or , ''Katastaríoi Lokrói''; ; la, Catacium), also known as the "City of the two Seas", is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its p ...

Cesena Cesena (; rgn, Cisêna) is a city and ''comune'' in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, served by Autostrada A14 (Italy), Autostrada A14, and located near the Apennine Mountains, about from the Adriatic Sea. The total population is 97,137. ...

and

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

International career

At international level, Rizzo earned two caps and scored two goals for the Italy national team in 1966, and was part of the Italian squad for the 1966 FIFA World Cup.

References

External links

*
Profile at enciclopediadelcalcio.it
*
Profile at FIGC
* 1943 births 2022 deaths Italian men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Italy men's international footballers 1966 FIFA World Cup players Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Cosenza Calcio players US Alessandria Calcio 1912 players Cagliari Calcio players ACF Fiorentina players Bologna FC 1909 players US Catanzaro 1929 players AC Cesena players Genoa CFC players Footballers from the Province of Cosenza {{Italy-footy-midfielder-1940s-stub