Del Piero started out in goal and stayed loyal when Juventus fell
As a boy, Alessandro Del Piero played goalkeeper because his mother reckoned he would sweat less and get hurt less. His brother talked her round. The boy moved up front and became Juventus's all-time leading scorer, and when the club was demoted in 2006 he stayed to lead it back up.
Del Piero grew up in rural Saccon, near Conegliano in the Veneto, the son of an electrician and a housekeeper. He kicked a ball around the backyard with two friends who shared his dream, and with little money for travel he once thought of driving lorries to see the world. His older brother Stefano briefly played for Sampdoria before injury ended his career, and later became Alessandro's agent.
Scouts noticed him in 1988, and at 13 he left home for Padova's youth ranks. He made his Serie B debut at 17 on 15 March 1992 against Messina, and scored his first professional goal that November in a 5–0 rout of Ternana. In 1993 Juventus bought him for five billion lire. After scoring off the bench against Reggiana in only his second Serie A game, he struck a hat-trick against Parma on his first start.
Juventus reached three successive Champions League finals from 1996 to 1998, winning the first, and Del Piero was top scorer in the 1997–98 edition. Consecutive league titles came in 2001–02 and 2002–03. Then the Calciopoli scandal sent the club down to Serie B in 2006. Several stars left; Del Piero remained as captain and led the team straight back. Across 19 seasons, 11 wearing the armband, he set club records of 290 goals and 705 appearances and collected 16 trophies, including six league titles.
With Italy he played at three World Cups and four European Championships, reaching the Euro 2000 final and winning the 2006 World Cup, and scored 27 international goals. Pelé named him in the FIFA 100 in 2004. After leaving Turin in 2012 he played two seasons for Sydney FC and one for Delhi Dynamos before retiring in 2014. His 346 goals rank second among Italians behind Silvio Piola's 390, and he has worked as a Sky Sport Italia pundit since 2015.
Source: Alessandro Del Piero
