Vincenzo Montella hangs up his boots

By: Francesco | July 2nd, 2009

Today it was reported that at 35 years of age, Roma striker Vincenzo Montella has decided to retire. Montella was one of the best strikers Italy has ever produced and one of Italy’s deadliest strikers in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Short in stature and nicknamed “L’Aeroplanino” (Little Airplane) for his trademark goal celebration (pictured), Montella had a lethal left foot and seemed to find the net from any angle, scoring some beautiful goals. Along with his finishing ability, Montella had awesome technical ability for a pure striker, technique that you would often see in attacking midfielders, not a clinical finisher like him. The one problem Montella had was injuries. He was too frail to take himself to the top level of the game. However he still made an excellent career for himself. Montella story after the jump.

Vincenzo Montella was born in Napoli, but like many Neapolitan players (Antonio Di Natale, Francesco Lodi just to name a few), made the move to Empoli’s youth system at a young age and was brought up in Tuscany. At the time Empoli was in Serie C1 and he made his debut at 16 years of age in 1990, and stayed for 5 seasons scoring 26 goals in 51 appearances. In 1995 he was transferred to Genoa, who were in Serie B, and as a 21 year old he scored 21 goals in 34 appearances, proving that he was a very bright prospect. However that summer, Montella wanted to play in Serie A, and he got his wish but was transferred to Genoa’s rivals Sampdoria.

At first Sampdoria fans were a little skeptic of Montella, since he was a Genoa player, but Montella quickly became a fan favorite, in large part because of the 22 goals he scored in 28 games. That goalscoring record is still the best ever for an Italian debutant in Serie A. The following season he scored another 20 goals in 33 games, but in his third season suffered injury problems and without their star striker Samp were relegated. In the summer of 1999 Roma won the battle for his signature.

In his first season (also Fabio Capello’s first season) with the Giallorossi Montella was a starter and scored 18 goals, which earned him a place in Dino Zoff’s Italy side for Euro 2000. The following season was different however, because of the arrival of Gabriel Batistuta. At first the trouble started when Batistuta wanted the number 9 shirt (Montella refused to give it up, forcing Batistuta to take 18). Then, Capello didn’t seem to like the Montella-Batistuta partnership and favored Delvecchio-Batistuta instead. So the first part of the season wasn’t a good one for L’Aeroplanino but in the second part of the season he proved to be crucial, scoring important goals and finishing the season with 13 goals and a Scudetto. In 2001-2002, he had the game of his life in the Rome derby, scoring 4 goals vs. Lazio, which is still a record. He also had his best game with the National Team, scoring 2 goals vs. England to lead Italy to victory 2-1 in a pre-World Cup friendly at Elland Road. He represented the Azzurri at the World Cup, playing in the last group game vs. Mexico.

After that Montella started to decline a bit, but came back in full force in the 2004/2005 season, scoring 24 goals even though Roma had a disappointing season. This also gave him a return to the Azzurri (but that was his last appearance). He became more and more of a bench player, and in January of 2007 was loaned to Fulham in the EPL, where the fans loved him but he only could score 3 goals in 10 games. In the summer of 2007 he returned to Sampdoria on loan, and even though he started brilliantly, injury troubles again kept him out most of the year, only notching 12 appearances and 4 goals. Last season he stayed at Roma but again little injuries nagged him and he couldn’t beat other players out for a starting place so he only made 12 appearances. And now he has decided to call it quits. Roma have just announced that Montella will take charge of the “Giovanissimi Nazionali” youth team (which are 15 year olds).

Overall, Montella has scored 141 goals in 288 appearances in Serie A, good for 27th all-time. Montella videos:

Sampdoria