Serie A - Player Profile: Mauro Camoranesi
Mauro Camoranesi was born in Tandil, Argentina on the 4th of October 1976 and he currently plays for Juventus in the Italian football league. Mauro usually plays as a right midfielder but he is also capable enough to play for a central midfielder.
Camoranesi also plays for the Italian national team despite holding an Argentinean nationality as well. Mauro has himself admitted that he is a big fan of the Argentinean club River Plate but as he grew up he played for the South American club Athletico Aldosivi. Aldosivi is an amateur club which is situated 100 miles away from Mauro’s birthplace Tandil.
In his teens, Camoranesi moved to Mexico and stated his professional football career at Santos Laguna. With Santos, the Italian international won the Primera Division de Mexico during the 1996 season. In thirteen appearances for his club side, Mauro scored a single goal. Santo’s fans nicknamed Camoranesi as El Cholo.
In the following season, Mauro moved to Uruguay where he played for Montevideo Wanderers before returned to Argentina to play for Banfield. At Banfield, the young midfielder established himself as a skillful footballer and in thirty eight appearances for the argentine club he scored sixteen goals, all of which came in the Argentinean league matches.
After just spending a year at Banfield, Camoranesi moved to Mexico and this time around he joined Cruz Azul where he spent two years from 1998-2000. While in Mexico, Mauro caught Italian Serie A side Verona’s attention as he scored twenty one goals in seventy nine games, which in itself was a remarkable achievement.
In the year 2000, Mrauro moved to Italy as he joined Verona where he played for only two years. In the beginning of the 2002-2003 season, Juventus reached a co-owner ship deal with Verona, an agreement which amounted to around five million Euros. On the 26th of June, 2003 Juventus completed Camoranesi’s signing from Verona. The Argentinean nationals signing by Juventus was also complimented by arrivals of Di Vaio and Maresca to the Italian giants.
Camoranesi won the Scudetto with Juventus in his first season at the club and this feat was later on repeated in his career at Juventus. In the 2005-2006 season, Juventus were declared guilty in a match fixing scandal. This announcement resulted in their relegation from Italian football league’s first division which is also known as Serie A.
Camoranesi stuck with the club consistently in their hard times after the scandal and helped them regain top levels status in the 2006-2007 season. He was approached by several big name clubs such as Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Roma but he refused to abandon the Italian giants in their time of need. In international football, the Argentinean born footballer made his first appearance for Italy in a friendly match against Portugal on 12th of February 2003. He played for Italy in the European Championships of 2004 which were held in Portugal as well. Mauro has played a total number of 54 matches for Italy and has scored five times during those appearances.
His first goal for the Azzuri came in Italy’s 2006 World Cup qualification match against Belarus. Despite being a dual national of both Italy and Argentina, Camoranesi decided to play for Italy because their national football association approached him first. He won the 2006 FIFA World Cup with Italy in Germany. In the final match of the tournament with him in the lineup Italy defeated France on a penalty shootout after Zidane was sent off for a head butt on Marco Materazzi.
In the up-coming 2010-2011 season, Camoranesi will be working hard to win the Italian league title with Juventus. He will be competing against the likes of Gattuso at Milan, Eto at Inter Milan and Totti at Roma, in a race to win the Scudetto. Inter Milan won the Scudetto in the 2009-2010 season. Juventus finished seventh in the 2009-2010 season and qualified for the Europa League in doing so.
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