From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marco Ballotta
Personal information
Full name	Marco Ballotta
Date of birth	April 3, 1964 (age 43)
Place of birth	Casalecchio di Reno, Italy
Height	1.81m
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Club information
Current club	S.S. Lazio
Number	32
Youth clubs
1981-82	Bologna
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1982-83 1984-90 1991 1991-94 1994-95 1995-97 1997-2000 2000-01 2001-04 2004-05 2005-	San Lazzaro Modena Cesena Parma Brescia Reggiana Lazio Internazionale Modena Treviso Lazio	22 (0) 178 (0) 5 (0) 33 (0) 32 (0) 72 (0) 13 (0) 7 (0) 88 (0) 8 (0)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of June 2006. 2 National team caps and goals correct as of N/A. * Appearances (Goals)

Marco Ballotta (born 3 April 1964) is an Italian football goalkeeper, currently playing for S.S. Lazio of Serie A.

Ballotta was born in Casalecchio di Reno, Emilia Romagna.

He started his career with his native club Bologna but never made a first team appearance. In 1984, he was moved to Modena F.C. where he played for 6 years.

In January 1991 he was transferred to Cesena, but only stayed for 6 months when he was purchased by Parma A.C.. It was with Parma that he enjoyed his best season (92/93) as he helped the club to win the Cup Winners' Cup ^[1] and finish third in Serie A.

However 93/94 was a less enjoyable season for Ballotta as he only made 3 Serie A appearances, although one of those was in the side which triumphed in the European Super Cup ^[2]. But he was a mere spectator sat on the bench for the 1994 Cup Winners' Cup final.^[3]

In the following summer he moved again, this time to Serie A team Brescia, but he was unable to prevent the sides relegation in his only season with the club. He played Serie B football the next season, but not for Brescia. Instead he successfully achieved promotion to Serie A with A.C. Reggiana 1919 in 1996.

Unfortunately their stay in Italy's top flight was brief. and Marco transferred to the 7th club of his career, S.S. Lazio as the club's third choice goalkeeper. Following this in 2000/01 he enjoyed a brief stint with Inter Milan, before returning to Modena F.C. on loan to help the club promote to Serie A in 2002. He move to the club permanent in 2002. He was among the players to keep them there until their eventual relegation in 2004.

Ballotta played for Treviso of Serie B in 2004/05 season. Which Treviso finished 5th and later promoted to Serie A.

In 2005 he become a player-coach, but during the 2005-06 season following injuries sustained by Angelo Peruzzi and Matteo Sereni he made eight appearances for Lazio. In doing this he broke the record for the oldest player to make a Serie A appearance record previously held by the legendary Dino Zoff for more than 20 years. His final game in the 2005/2006 was at the age of 42 years and 34 days on 7 May 2006 for Lazio against Ascoli.

As of February 23, 2007, his last game played was against Torino F.C. on February 18, 2007.

Ballotta has never been selected to play for the Italian national side.

1. ^ UEFA Cup Winners' Cup news
2. ^ http://www.footballsite.co.uk/Statistics/European/SuperCup/SuperCup1993-94.htm
3. ^ Arsenal frustrate Parma's double hopes

• Inter Archive
• (Dutch) Statistics at Voetbal International
• Statistics at Yahoo!UK

S.S. Lazio - Current Squad

1 Peruzzi | 2 Stendardo | 3 Bonetto | 4 Firmani | 5 Mutarelli | 6 Quadri | 7 Belleri | 8 Zauri | 10 Baronio | 11 Mauri | 13 Siviglia | 14 Berni | 15 Diakite | 17 Tare | 18 Rocchi | 19 Pandev | 20 Makinwa | 21 Inzaghi | 23 Greco | 24 Ledesma | 25 Cribari | 26 Mudingayi | 29 De Silvestri | 32 Ballotta | 33 Sereni | 68 Manfredini | 82 Gimelli | 83 Foggia | 85 Behrami | 88 Santarelli | 90 Arenas | Coach Rossi