Renzo Ulivieri (born 2 February 1941) is an Italian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

manager. He is the current chairman of the ''Associazione Italiana Allenatori Calcio'' (Italian Football Managers' Association).

Career

After a very short playing career as a

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

for the

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Florence, Tuscany. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while ...

youth team and

Serie C The Serie C (), officially known as Serie C NOW for sponsorship purposes, is the third-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie B and Serie A. The Lega Italiana Calcio Professionistico (Lega Pro) is the governing ...

team Cuoiopelli, Ulivieri became coach for Cuoiopelli in 1966, after the team were relegated to

Serie D The Serie D () is the highest level of semi-professional football in Italy, and the fourth tier of the Italian national league system. It sits beneath the third and lowest fully professional league, Serie C, and feeds in to it through promotion ...

. He then coached several other amateur teams in Tuscany, such as

San Miniato San Miniato is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Pisa, in the region of Tuscany, Italy. San Miniato sits at a historically strategic location atop three small hills where it dominates the lower Arno valley, between the valleys of the E ...

, Fucecchio, and the

Prato Prato ( ; ) is a city and municipality (''comune'') in Tuscany, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Prato. The city lies in the northeast of Tuscany, at an elevation of , at the foot of Monte Retaia (the last peak in the Calvana ch ...

youth squad. In 1972, he joined Serie C side

Empoli Empoli () is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Florence, Tuscany, Italy, about southwest of Florence, to the south of the Arno River, Arno in a plain formed by the river. The plain has been usable for agriculture since Ancient Ro ...

, where he served as head coach for three seasons. He then spent two years as Fiorentina youth coach before Ulivieri signing for Ternana of

Serie B The Serie B (), officially known as Serie 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 season. It had b ...

in 1978. He made his

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

debut in 1980 for

Perugia Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. It has 162,467 ...

. Since then, Ulivieri served as head coach for numerous clubs all around the country. His best results were a double consecutive promotion from Serie C1 to Serie A with Bologna, a Torneo di Viareggio with Fiorentina in 1978, and a promotion to Serie A with Sampdoria in 1981–82. In 1986 he was involved in the 1986 Totonero scandal and sentenced with a three-year ban, which was also confirmed on appeal. He returned to coach Bologna in 2005, but was fired soon after following a series of poor results. He was however recalled in March 2006, after his replacement Andrea Mandorlini did not manage to improve the team's results. Ulivieri also coached Bologna during the 2006–07 season, but was fired on 14 April 2007 after a 3–0 away loss to

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

, and following weeks of disputes with club chairman Alfredo Cazzola. In November 2007 he was appointed at the helm of relegation-battling Serie A side Reggina to replace Massimo Ficcadenti. On 3 March 2008, Ulivieri was sacked by Reggina after a string of results where they picked up only four points from seven league games.

Personal life

Ulivieri is also well known for his left-wing political stance (he is a former

Democrats of the Left The Democrats of the Left (, DS) was a social-democratic political party in Italy. Positioned on the centre-left, the DS, successor of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and the Italian Communist Party, was formed in 1998 upon the merger ...

and

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party (, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Part ...

member). In a 2013 interview with the Italian edition of '' Vanity Fair'', he discussed his left-wing political views, and also spoke out against homophobia in football.

Honours

Manager

Modena *

Serie C1 Serie C1 was the third highest football league in Italy. It consisted of 36 teams, divided geographically into two divisions. History Before the 1978–79 season, there were only three professional football leagues in Italy, the third being Se ...

: 1989–90 Bologna *

: 1994–95 *

: 1995–96

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ulivieri, Renzo 1941 births Living people People from San Miniato Sportspeople from the Province of Pisa Italian men's footballers Footballers from Tuscany Men's association football midfielders ACF Fiorentina players Italian football managers Serie A managers AC Perugia Calcio managers LR Vicenza managers Empoli FC managers Modena FC 2018 managers Bologna FC 1909 managers SSC Napoli managers Parma Calcio 1913 managers Torino FC managers Cagliari Calcio managers UC Sampdoria managers AS Reggina 1914 managers Ternana Calcio managers Calcio Padova managers Italian communists 20th-century Italian sportsmen