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Matteo Ferrari
Personal information
Full name	Matteo Ferrari
Date of birth	December 5, 1979 (age 27)
Place of birth	Aflou, Algeria
Height	1.83 m
Playing position	Left-back, Centre-back
Club information
Current club	Roma
Youth clubs
1995-96 1996-97	S.P.A.L. Internazionale
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1997-98 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-04 2004-present 2005-06	Genoa (loan) Lecce (loan) Bari (loan) Internazionale Parma Roma Everton (loan)	11(0) 3 (0) 13 (0) 27 (0) 113 (3) 45 (1) 8 (0)
National team
1995 1995/96 1997 1997 1998/99 1999/2002 2004 2002 -	Italy U15 Italy U16 Italy U17 Italy U18 Italy U20 Italy U21 Italy Olympics Team Italy A	3 (0) 4 (0) 5 (0) 7 (1) 3 (0) 27 (3) 6 (0) 11 (0)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of march 4th 2007. * Appearances (Goals)

Matteo Ferrari (born December 5, 1979 in Aflou, Algeria) is an Italian football player who currently plays for A.S. Roma. Matteo was born in Algeria but from an Italian father and a Guinean mother. He grow up in Ferrara and has a brother who also used to be a football player.

Contents 1 Club 2 National team 2.1 Italy Olympic Team 2.2 Italy A 3 Trivia 4 External links

Matteo started his career at Spal 1907 and he can play as left-back or centreback. Internazionale Milano F.C. brought him to their youth system, later loaned him to Genoa C.F.C., U.S. Lecce and A.S. Bari. He was back to Inter, making 27 appearances, but failed to stay, this time loaned to Parma A.C.. A permanent transfer was made because of his good performance. On summer of 2004, he joined A.S. Roma for an undisclosed fee and Damiano Ferronetti going to opposite direction. He failed to give performance as in Parma, forced the club loan him to UEFA Cup competitor Everton F.C..

It took a few games for him to get accustomed to the Premiership, but Ferrari showed plenty of quality when he finally got going for Everton. Unfortunately that was brought to an end in the 1-0 win over Arsenal, when he sustained nerve damage to his hamstring.

He returned to the Everton side for the FA Cup 4th Round replay defeat against Chelsea.

Rumours suggested at one point Matteo Ferrari wanted to return to Roma, but in April 2006 David Moyes declared that all the signs pointed towards Matteo wanting to stay on and sign for Everton. More rumours emmerged in late April stating that Matteo was far from happy at repeatedly having to play second fiddle to Alan Stubbs and David Weir. The chance to secure his signing permanently was in jeopardy. On May 8 2006, Everton announced they would not follow up their interest in Matteo and that he would return to Roma.

This is what eventually happened, even if Olympiakos FC was highly interested in signing him.

Algerian born, with an Italian father and a Guinean mother, he choose to play on the Italy national football team. He had played for U15, U16, U17, U20 teams. Selected since 1999, he won the 2000 European Under-21 Football Championship with Italy U21 team.

Olympic medal record
Competitor for  Italy
Men's Football
Bronze	2004 Athens	Team Competition

He played for his country twice at the Olympics, In 2000 and in 2004.

In 2000 Summer Olympics, he only played the quarterfinals match losing to Spain. In 2004 Summer Olympics, he is one of the three over age players allowed. He played all the matches and Italy lost the semi-finals match against Argentina (eventual champion of 2004 Olympics football), but Italy won the Bronze Medal match against Iraq.

His first A team call-up is against Serbia and Montenegro (as FR Yugoslavia), but he did not play. In the same year, he made his A team debut against Turkey on 20 November 2002. Not call-up to the 2002 FIFA World Cup, his first non-friendly appearance is the last Euro 2004 qualifying match against Azerbaijan, replaced Alessandro Nesta at the last 14 minutes.

He didn't play any match in the Euro 2004 final round.

He played for 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches in 2004. Since Marcello Lippi became the new coach of national team, he never played for Italy A.

He has gained notoriety for his high profile relationship with the Venezuelan beauty queen Aída Yéspica.

• Profile at Soccerway
• (Italian) Inter Archive
• Profile at Everton F.C. Official Site
• Profile at UEFA.com
• (Italian) National Team Records

A.S. Roma - Current Squad
1 Curci | 2 Panucci | 3 Martínez | 4 Wilhelmsson | 5 Mexès | 7 Pizarro | 8 Aquilani | 10 Totti | 11 Taddei | 12 Pipolo | 13 Chivu | 14 Faty | 16 De Rossi | 17 Tavano | 18 Virga | 19 Defendi | 20 Perrotta | 21 Ferrari | 22 Tonetto | 23 Vučinić | 27 Julio Sergio | 28 Rosi | 30 Mancini | 32 Doni | 35 Okaka | 77 Cassetti | Coach Spalletti