Ubaldo Righetti (; born 1 March 1963) is an Italian former professional

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 lea ...

who played as a defender; he was usually deployed as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

Club career

Righetti played 10 seasons in the Italian

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 ...

for

A.S. Roma Associazione Sportiva Roma (''Rome Sport Association''; Italian pronunciation: ) is a professional football club based in Rome, Italy. Founded by a merger in 1927, Roma has participated in the top tier of Italian football for all of its exis ...

Udinese Udinese Calcio (; "Udinese Football") is a professional football club based in Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. The team currently competes in the Serie A, the first tier of Italian football. It was founded on 30 November 1896 as a sport ...

, U.S. Lecce,

Bari Bari ( ; ; ; ) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia Regions of Italy, region, on the Adriatic Sea in southern Italy. It is the first most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy. It is a port and ...

, and

Delfino Pescara 1936 Delfino Pescara 1936, commonly referred to as Pescara, is a professional football in Italy, Italian football club based in Pescara, Abruzzo. The club was formed in 1936 and currently plays in Serie C, but will play in Serie B in the 2025–26 s ...

. He is mostly remembered for his time with Roma under manager

Nils Liedholm Nils Erik Liedholm (; 8 October 1922 – 5 November 2007) was a Swedish association football, football midfielder and coach. ''Il Barone'' (the Baron), as he is affectionately known in Italy, was renowned for being part of the Swedish "Gre-No-Li ...

(1980–1987), the club with which he made his debut, winning the Serie A title during the 1982–83 season, as well as three

Coppa Italia Coppa Italia () is the annual domestic cup of Italian football. The knockout competition was organized by the DDS and the Lega Calcio until the 2009–10 season and by Lega Serie A ever since. Juventus is the competition's most successf ...

titles, in 1981, 1984, and

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. ** Spain and Portugal en ...

. During his Roma career, he also helped the club to reach the final of the

1983–84 European Cup The 1983–84 European Cup was the 29th season of the European Cup, UEFA's premier club football competition. The tournament was won for a fourth time by Liverpool in a penalty shootout in the final against Roma. The game had finished 1–1. P ...

; he scored in the resulting penalty shootout that Roma eventually lost to

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

in the 1984 European Cup Final. Due to his performances in the European Cup with Roma that season, he notably won the

Bravo Award The Bravo Award was an annual award which was handed out by the Italian magazine ''Guerin Sportivo'' to the most outstanding young European Association football, footballer. The first winner of the award was Englishman Jimmy Case. The first no ...

in 1984, which is awarded to the best Under-23 played in European Competitions. Despite his talent, Righetti was accused of never fulfilling his potential demonstrated in earlier years, and the later part of his career was much less successful. In 1987, he transferred to Udinese for a

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 axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

, and he was subsequently sent to

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 ...

side Lecce; during his time with the club, he was sent briefly on loan to local side Bari, with which he won the

Mitropa Cup The Mitropa Cup, officially called Coupe de l'Europe Centrale, Mitteleuropäischer Pokal or Central European Cup, was one of the first international major European association football, football cups for club sides. It was conducted among the suc ...

in 1990, later moving to Pescara the following season. He ended his career after four seasons with the Serie B club, helping the club to obtain promotion to

during the 1991–92 season, although they would once again be relegated to Serie B the following season. He ended his career with the club in Serie B after the 1993–94 season.

International career

Righetti made 8 appearances in the Italy national team during his career between 1983 and 1985, all under manager

Enzo Bearzot Enzo Bearzot (; 26 September 1927 – 21 December 2010) was an Italian professional football player and manager. A defender and midfielder in his playing career, he also coached the Italy national team to victory in the 1982 FIFA World Cup. ...

After retirement

Following his retirement he attempted to pursue a coaching career but he currently works as a commentator for

RAI (), commercially styled as since 2000 and known until 1954 as (RAI), is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels a ...

Honours

Club

Roma *

: 1982–83 *

: 1980–81, 1983–84, 1985–86 Bari *

: 1990

Individual

: 1984

References

External links

* *
Profile at FIGC.it
Living people 1963 births Footballers from the Province of Latina Men's association football defenders Italian men's footballers Italy men's international footballers Italy men's youth international footballers Italy men's under-21 international footballers Serie A players Serie B players AS Roma players Udinese Calcio players US Lecce players Delfino Pescara 1936 players People from Sermoneta 20th-century Italian sportsmen {{Italy-footy-defender-1960s-stub