Cristiano Lucarelli

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Cristiano Lucarelli (born 4 October 1975 in Livorno, Italy) is an Italian footballer who plays as a striker for Serie A side Livorno, his hometown club.

[edit] Club career

A journeyman striker, Lucarelli had stints with eight different teams (including a brief run in Spain) before signing with hometown A.S. Livorno Calcio in 2003. While playing for Torino F.C. the previous season, he attended a match that saw Livorno emerge victorious and earn promotion to Serie B, and he was among a throng of fans who rushed the pitch afterwards in celebration. He made an immediate impact in Livorno's return to Serie A in the 2003-04 season, scoring 29 goals in 38 matches and instantly winning a space in the hearts of Amaranto fans. He won the Golden Boot Award as Serie A's top goalscorer the following season, with 24 in 35 matches as Livorno finished in eighth place.

A rarity in the football world in terms of club loyalty, he rejected several better-paying offers from other Italian and European clubs (among them a €3 million offer from FC Zenit Saint Petersburg in July 2006) to remain with Livorno. He was once quoted as saying, "Some football players pay a billion for a Ferrari or a yacht; with that money I bought myself Livorno’s shirt. That's all."

He scored his 100th Serie A goal as part of a hat-trick in a 4-1 defeat of Catania on April 1, 2007.

Lucarelli's seemingly perfect relationship with the team soured after a conflict with club president Aldo Spinelli arose over the firing of coach Daniele Arrigoni in March 2007, during which he openly stated his desire to leave. It became permanently damaged a month later, when Lucarelli received a frosty reception from supporters after a sluggish 1-1 home draw with Reggina, with many fans going as far as to accuse Livorno of match-fixing. Lucarelli, hurt by the fans' criticism, reiterated his plans to leave Livorno at the end of the season.

In May, he was quick to snuff out rumors of a move to Serie A rivals ACF Fiorentina, and continued to remain ambiguous about his future with Livorno, claiming that he would make a decision on June 6; five days later, Lucarelli announced that he would be staying home for next season due to a lack of offers from other teams, despite fresh rumors about Palermo, Parma and Sampdoria being interested in his services.

However, on 13 July, Lucarelli agreed to join Shakhtar Donetsk for L6 million, signing a three-year contract worth L2.8 million a season, thus becoming the first Italian to play in Ukraine. The news resulted in a flood of negative responses from fans on his official website. He replied to the furor at a press conference, "I am going, but I didn't hold a gun to anyone's head...Shakhtar signed me for a figure that was below the buy-out clause of my contract. That means the club made its considerations and thought that L6m was good for a player going on 32."

Lucarelli scored his first European goal for Shakhtar in their 2-0 group stage win over Celtic FC on September 18, 2007.

On January 15, 2008, Lucarelli was sold to Parma F.C. for Ł4 million, and he signed a three-and-a-half year, Ł1.2 million contract. His younger brother, Alessandro, joined him at Parma for the 2008-09 season. His time at Parma did not prove to be particularly successful, as he scored only four goals in 16 matches in the remaining half of the 2007–08 season, with his side being ultimately relegated to Serie B after a long struggle with results. He opted to stay with Parma also for the 2008–09 season, aiming to offer his contribution to bring the team back into the top flight, however Lucarelli was featured intermittently through the season, playing only 19 games (out of 42) and scoring a total eight goals.

On July 2009 Lucarelli completed a much-publicized comeback at Livorno on a loan move from Parma. Lucarelli has already played for Livorno from 2003 to 2007.^[1][2]

[edit] Passion and controversy

Lucarelli's passion for his home club often resulted in many questionable incidents. The May 2005 issue of Calcio Italia magazine reported that he had paid for a bus that brought a cadre of traveling Livorno fans back to the city after they had been arrested for rioting. He has the A.S. Livorno logo tattooed on his left forearm, and his jersey number, 99, was an homage to left-wing ultras group Brigate Autonome Livornesi, which was founded in 1999.

He was also of an increasingly rare breed of Italian footballer who openly brought his politics onto the pitch; his goal celebration consisted of a dual clenched-fist salute, a gesture made famous by the Communist party. He has openly admitted that he, like most of Livorno's fanbase, is a supporter of communism. One of his cell phone ringtones was Bandiera Rossa, and he once gregariously declared, “We [Livorno] get no favors from the referees because we are Communists!” but later retracted this statement.

He is a staunch admirer of Che Guevara, whose face is frequently displayed on Livorno fans' banners and T-shirts during matches. This first came to the fore in 1997, when, after scoring for Italy's Under-21 side, he celebrated by pulling his jersey over his face to reveal a shirt bearing the revolutionary's image. Despite his insisting that it was not a political gesture, he was consequently blackballed from the national team for several years until Marcello Lippi called him up as a starter for a friendly in 2005.

Lucarelli met Guevara's daughter, Aleida Guevara, after the 2004-05 Serie A season; one subject of discussion was the possibility of Livorno travelling to Cuba to play a charity match, but it never came to fruition.

[edit] International career

Lucarelli has been capped six times for the Italy senior squad. His aforementioned debut was during a 2005 friendly tournament in the United States and Canada, where he scored his first national goal in a 1-1 draw against Serbia and Montenegro at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. He was left off the Italy roster for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, but was recalled by new coach Roberto Donadoni - who had briefly coached Lucarelli at Livorno earlier in the year - for a friendly against Croatia on August 16, 2006.

Due to a rash of injuries among the Azzurri, Lucarelli was summoned for a pair of June Euro 2008 qualifiers against Lithuania and the Faroe Islands. He came on as a substitute for Filippo Inzaghi in the 58th minute of Italy's narrow 2-1 victory over the Faroes on June 2, but did not play in a 2-0 defeat of Lithuania on June 6. Lucarelli also substituted for Inzaghi in the 65th minute of a Euro 2008 qualifying match against France on September 8, 2007. He scored his first brace in Italy's 2-0 friendly win over South Africa on October 17th.