Fabio Quagliarella

Date of birth	January 31, 1983 (1983-01-31) (age 28)
Place of birth	Castellammare di Stabia, Italy
Height	1.82 m (5 ft 11 1⁄2 in)
Playing position	Striker

Fabio Quagliarella (Italian pronunciation: [ˈfaːbjo kwaʎʎaˈrɛlla]) (born 31 January 1983) is an Italian footballer who plays as a striker for Serie A club Juventus and internationally for the Italian national team. He is known for scoring incredible goals from unconventional angles that often catch the goalkeeper by surprise

Club career

Early career

Quagliarella began his career at Torino. He made his Serie A debut against Piacenza Calcio on 14 May 2000 and later made four appearances at Serie A 2001-02 season.
He was then sent on loan to lower division clubs Florentia Viola, at that time in Serie C2, and then Chieti. He returned to Torino in 2004, and scored eight goals in Serie B, plus one goal against Ascoli in the promotion playoff's first legs. But financial problems forced Torino to stay in Serie B, which allowed players to leave for free.

Udinese

Quagliarella joined Udinese on summer 2005, and the club sold half of the registration rights to newly promoted Ascoli, as part of a loan deal.
Quagliarella stayed at Ascoli for just a season, then was loaned to Sampdoria by the transfer of the Ascoli's half of the registration rights. During his time with the blucerchiati, Quagliarella scored 13 goals in the 2006–2007 season, plus one goal in seven matches in the 2006–07 Coppa Italia.
On 21 June 2007, Udinese took the full ownership of the player from Sampdoria by blind auction between the two clubs. On 5 July 2007, a 4-way swap was formed, which saw Quagliarella replaced Vincenzo Iaquinta (left on 19 June), and Sampdoria signed Andrea Caracciolo to replace Quagliarella on 22 June and Palermo signed Fabrizio Miccoli from Juventus on 5 July. He signed an improved contract along with Handanovič and Gyan due to expire on June 30, 2012.^[2] He played as a regular for the whole 2007–08 season, scoring a total 12 goals and achieving a place in the Italian squad for the Euro 2008 competition.

Napoli

On 1 June 2009, Quagliarella signed a five year deal with hometown club Napoli.^[3] Partnered with Ezequiel Lavezzi and attacking midfielder Marek Hamšík, he scored 11 goals in Serie A and Napoli qualified to 2010–11 UEFA Europa League as the 6th of the league. He played his last match for Napoli in that tournament, winning IF Elfsborg 1–0. He was a unused bench in the second leg, which Walter Mazzarri used new signing Edinson Cavani partnered with Lavezzi, who the former scored a brace to make the team qualified.

Juventus

On August 27, 2010, Quagliarella signed for Juventus on loan for a fee of €4.5 million wtih the Bianconeri having the option to sign him permanently for €10.5m, paid over three years. Before the winter break, he was the team's top scorer with 9 league goals in 17 appearances. However, he was injured on 6 January 2011, in the first match after the winter break, losing to Parma 1–4. He would miss the rest of season.^[4] He was unable to play for Juventus in the Europa League, as he had already appeared against IF Elfsborg for Napoli earlier in the competition.

International career

Following his impressive performances with Sampdoria in 2006–07, Quagliarella was called up to the Azzurri squad for a friendly against Romania in February. However, it was delayed by the match cancellation due to fan riots in Serie A that weekend.
Later he played for the Azzurri in March for a Euro 2008 qualifier against Scotland, and made his debut as a substitute, replacing Luca Toni in the final minutes. In Kaunas on 6 June 2007, on his first start for Italy, he scored his first two goals for them in a 2–0 win over Lithuania in a vital Euro 2008 qualifier. On 6 February, he scored Italy's third goal in their 3–1 triumph over Portugal in an international friendly in Zurich. In June 2010 he scored a header against Switzerland in Italy's final friendly before the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
He was included in the Italian Euro 2008 squad and the Italian 2010 World Cup squad. During the second half of the 3–2 defeat to Slovakia in a Group F game at South Africa World Cup 2010, he executed a beautiful 25 yard chip to bring the score to 3–2. Coach Marcello Lippi had only given him 45 minutes in one of Italy's most shameful world cup knockouts, in which Fabio managed to give teammate Antonio Di Natale a rebound goal, have a volley cleared off the line by Slovak defender Martin Škrtel, have an equalizing goal controversially ruled offside, and score the aforementioned wonder goal.^[5] This match was also incidentally his 21st cap for Italy, having scored 5 goals for them since making his national team debut back in 2007.^[