Serie A-Player Profile: David Pizzaro
Pizzaro whose full name is David Marcelo Pizzaro Cortes was born in Valparaiso in Chile. He is a Chilean international footballer who currently plays for Roma in the Italian football league, also known as the Serie A. He usually plays in a deep playmakers role but is also deployed further up the field due to his outstanding vision and passing accuracy.
Pizzaro is called Peq or Pek by his Roma team mates due to his short height, the word literally means small in Italian. David started his football career in as a midfielder with Santiago Wanderers in Valparaiso, Chile. His first experience of European football came with the Italian club Udinese as he came to the club on a short loan spell from Chile.
Pizzaro also had a mini loan spell at the South American club side, Universidad de Chile where he played in the Copa Libertadores. His success in both the league spells in Europe and at home caused Inter Milan to approach the player for his services. The Italian giants agreed a co-ownership deal with the Chilean player, the deal amounted to around twelve million dollars and was four years in contractual duration.
After moving to the Nerazzuri, David claimed that he wanted to spend the rest of his career with the Italian champions, however this did not materialize because he found it hard to even break into the club’s starting eleven. After spending a frustrating season at Inter, Pizzaro won the Italian league with the club along with a Super Coppa as well as the Coppa Italia.
In the summer of 2006, specifically in the month of August, Roma signed Pizzaro for 6.5 million Euros. However this deal only included half of the Chilean playmaker’s contractual rights. White at Roma, Pizzaro took up his conventional role of a playmaker and became one of the most outstanding players at the Roman club as they attempted to win the Serie A. In October of 2009, Pizzaro signed a new three year contract with Roma and in the 2009-2010 season, Pizzaro scored two goals and managed to assist in eight goals.
David was arguably the best midfielder in the Italian football league in the 2009-2010 season as Roma pushed Mourinho’s Inter Milan all the way to the finish line in the race to for the Italian league title. His passing ability and dribbling as well as his ball retention capabilities helped Roma greatly in the league campaign. As far as Pizzaro’s international career is concerned, he played his first game as a Chilean international football player in 1999. The young Chilean played in the 1999 Copa America tournament as well as in the 2000 Summer Olympics which was held in Sydney. He was successful in winning the Bronze medal at the Sydney Olympics. However, despite playing for Chile in the 2002 and 2006 World Cup qualifiers, he failed to lead his team to both the World Cup competitions.
After Chile again failed to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, Pizzaro declared his retirement from international football, due to many reasons. The main reason is thought to be the lack of seriousness that Chile’s ex-coach Juvenal Olmos had towards the national side, he also was thought to be unhappy because young players in the Chilean national side were only in it for publicity purposes.
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