Marco Tardelli

Marco Tardelli
Personal information
Full name	Marco Tardelli
Position(s)	Midfielder

Marco Tardelli (born 24 September 1954) is a former football player from Italy, and is the current assistant manager for the Republic of Ireland. He played defensive midfielder with Juventus and the Italian national team. He was part of the Italian side to win the 1982 World Cup and was five time Italian Serie A champion. He was well known for his battling qualities, primarily his stamina and mentality as well as his ruthless tackling. He was also known for his technical abilities and his ability to score vital goals.

Career

Tardelli was born at Capanne di Careggine, in the province of Lucca (Tuscany). He started his career in the Italian Serie C with the club of Pisa. Two years later he played in the Serie B with Como before joining Serie A giants Juventus in October 1975.

During his decade-long stint at the Turin club, he won three European competitions: the UEFA Cup, Cup Winners' Cup and European Cup as well as five times the Italian Serie A championship and three Coppa Italia (Italian Cup).

He scored the decisive goal during the first leg of the UEFA Cup finale against Athletic Bilbao, allowing Juventus to gain this competition in 1977, his first and also the first European title for Juventus.

Tardelli played 376 games with Juventus and scored 51 goals.

National team

His international career started on 7 April 1976, with a game against Portugal. He played the Football World Cup 1978 and the 1980 European Football Championship. He performed especially well during the Football World Cup 1982 won by Italy, scoring one goal in the final against West Germany and another one earlier against Argentina. He is particularly remembered for his famous goal celebration in the final. With tears in his eyes, he sprinted towards the Italian bench, fists clenched in front of his chest, tears pouring down his face, screaming "goal!" as he shook his head wildly. This celebration would become known as the "Tardelli cry".

He received 81 caps, his last one against Norway in September 1985 before retiring 3 years later.

Coaching career

Tardelli started his managing career as head coach of the Under 16 Italian national team in 1988, immediately after his retirement. Two years later, he became the assistant coach of Cesare Maldini for the Under 21 team. In 1993 he switched to Como of Serie C1. He led Como to promotion into Serie B, but was unable to avoid relegation.

In 1995 he took over Cesena, another Serie B team. Tardelli would spend three seasons with Cesena before leaving to become head coach of the Italian Under 21 team. He would win the Under 21 European Championship,^[2] the following year. His success with the Italian Under 21 side, led Tardelli to became the manager of Internazionale for the 2000–01 season. His tenure with the Nerazzurri would be short, following a string of embarrassing defeats especially a 6–0 defeat to local rivals AC Milan, Tardelli was fired in June 2001. Tardelli did not have much luck in the coaching jobs that followed, which included spells with Bari, the Egyptian national team and Arezzo. He ultimately fired from all of this positions.^{[citation needed]}

He served for a short time as part of the administrative council of his old club Juventus in 2006. Before joining the staff of Giovanni Trapattoni with the Republic of Ireland national football team in February 2008. Tardelli has acted as Trapattoni's assistant in a move that sees him reunited with former Juventus team-mate Liam Brady, who has also been named as Trapattoni's assistant.