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Luigi Maifredi

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Luigi Maifredi
Personal information
Date of birth (1947-04-20) 20 April 1947 (age 77)
Place of birth Lograto, Italy
Position(s) Midfielder[1]
Team information
Current team
 Brescia (technical collaborator)
Youth career
1966 Brescia
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1967 Rovereto 9 (1)
1968 Portogruaro 18 (4)
Managerial career
1976–1977 Real Brescia
1977–1978 Crotone (assistant manager)
1978–1980 Lumezzane
1984–1986 Orceana
1986–1987 Ospitaletto
1987–1990 Bologna
1990–1991 Juventus
1991–1992 Bologna
1992–1993 Genoa
1994 Venezia
1995 Brescia
1996 Pescara
1996 Esperance Sportive de Tunis
1998–1999 Albacete Balompié
2000 Reggiana
2013 Brescia (caretaker)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Luigi Maifredi (born 20 April 1947), commonly known as Gigi Maifredi, is an Italian football manager.

Career

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Born in Lograto (Province of Brescia), started out playing in his hometown club's youth system, and later played for Rovereto and Portogruaro. Maifredi's coaching career began in 1976 with amateur side Real Brescia.[2][3] He later served as assistant manager of Crotone, and also had spells in the lower divisions of Italian football with Lumezzane and Orceana, as well as Pspitaletto, with whom he won the Serie C2, Girone B title during the 1986–87 season.[3][4]

In 1987, Maifredi was appointed as manager of Serie B side Bologna, under the club's president Luigi Corioni. During his three seasons with Bologna, his attacking style of play proved to be highly effective; after joining the team, he helped the club win the Serie B title and achieve promotion to Serie A in his first season, and later helped the team avoid relegation in his second season, and subsequently qualify for the UEFA Cup in 1990.[3][5][6][7][8]

Maifredi is most noted for his short spell with Juventus, whom he joined after replacing Dino Zoff in 1990. During his only season in Turin, the club were known for their inconsistent performances. After a strong first half of the season, the club suffered a loss of form, during which they lost six games in a row. Maifredi was eventually sacked at the end of the season, following the club's failure to qualify for European football after placing seventh in Serie A, also losing out 5–1 to Napoli in the 1990 Supercoppa Italiana final; however, he managed to reach the semi-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup and the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia. Following his disappointing spell with Juventus, over the course of his coaching career, Maifredi managed several clubs in Italy, such as Bologna once again, Genoa, Venezia, and Brescia, among other teams, as well as having short coaching spells in Tunisia with Esperance Sportive de Tunis, and Spain with Albacete Balompié; however, he encountered less success with other teams.[3][5][6][9][10]

In 2005, Maifredi was on course to sign with Lazio, but the club's supporters were not keen on Maifredi's appointment, and even demonstrated against it, which ultimately forced the club's president Claudio Lotito to back down and appoint Giuseppe Papadopulo instead. In December 2009, he was successively appointed as a technical consultant and later as the director of Brescia Calcio.[11][12]

On 24 September 2013, after thirteen years since his last coaching appointment with Reggiana in 2000, Maifredi returned to the coaching bench for a spare game, co-training with assistant coach Fabio Micarelli after Brescia's head coach Marco Giampaolo failed to report for three days. The next day, Brescia appointed Maifredi as new head coach, thus ending a 13-year absence of his from head coaching roles into football. His period as a manager was only on a caretaker basis, as he left after only one game – a 0–2 loss to Latina – to leave room for new boss Cristiano Bergodi.[3][13][14]

Style of management

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Maifredi's footballing approach, which made use of tactics based on a defensive line which employed zonal marking, and an overall fast, attractive, and dynamic playing style, has been famously described as calcio champagne ("champagne wine football", in Italian) in the media; this was due to both his teams' prominent attacking and entertaining style of play, and also as a reference to his former professional career as a champagne wine representative for Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin. His tactics were likened to the system used by Arrigo Sacchi in the Italian media. During his time with Orceana and Bologna, Maifredi used a 4–3–3 formation.[3][5][6][15][16][17] With Juventus, he instead used a 4–2–2–2 formation.[10] His teams often used sweeper-keeper.[10]

Outside of football

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In 2003, during the Italian entertainment show Quelli che... il Calcio, which was presented by Simona Ventura at the time, Maifredi jokingly coached a team of former footballers, known as the "Maifredi Team", that reproduced the goals of the day to the viewers.[18] He later also worked as a pundit for Mediaset Premium.[19]

References

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  1. ^ Luigi Maifredi at WorldFootball.net
  2. ^ "Maifredi: "Né Bologna, né Juve: tifo per chi mi assume"". Il Corriere della Sera (in Italian). 19 October 2001.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Gaetani, Marco (8 January 2019). "Quasi leggenda: il Bologna del calcio champagne" (in Italian). Ultimo Uomo. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  4. ^ Mariani, Maurizio (20 January 2004). "Italy Championship 1986/87". RSSSF. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  5. ^ a b c Nassetti, Filippo (13 June 2017). "Nostalgia di Maifredi, a trent'anni dal suo calcio champagne". The Huffington Post (in Italian). Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  6. ^ a b c Pastore, Giuseppe (1 August 2019). "Tra Maifredi e la Juventus non poteva funzionare" (in Italian). www.ultimouomo.com. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  7. ^ Minguzzi, Manuel (8 March 2016). "Maifredi e Corioni: quel Bologna champagne che ottenne la promozione" (in Italian). Tutto Bologna Web. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  8. ^ Mariani, Maurizio (26 October 2000). "Italy Championship 1987/88". RSSSF. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  9. ^ Piri, Stefano (14 November 2016). "Roberto Baggio detto Roby" (in Italian). Ultimo Uomo. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  10. ^ a b c Pastore, Giuseppe (1 August 2019). "Tra Maifredi e la Juventus non poteva funzionare" (in Italian). Ultimo Uomo. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  11. ^ "Home - QuiBrescia - Tutte le notizie da Brescia e provincia".
  12. ^ Brega, Matteo; Vernazza, Sebastiano (26 February 2013). "Zamparini: da Venezia a Palermo, 43 allenatori, 35 esoneri. Li usa e li getta". La Gazzetta dello Sport (in Italian). Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  13. ^ "Comunicato Stampa Brescia Calcio 25/09/2013" (in Italian). Brescia Calcio. 25 September 2013. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  14. ^ "Cristiano Bergodi è il nuovo allenatore del Brescia Calcio" (in Italian). Brescia Calcio. 30 September 2013. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  15. ^ "Notizie, risultati e classifiche da Reggio Emilia - Maifredi, a volte ritornano. Oggi esordio sulla panchina del Brescia" (in Italian). SportReggio. 1 January 2018.
  16. ^ "Maifredi fantasma del calcio champagne". Il Corriere della Sera (in Italian). 18 February 2001.
  17. ^ Panella, Luigi (25 September 2013). "Brescia, riecco Maifredi. Calcio champagne 'invecchiato' tredici anni". La Repubblica (in Italian). Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  18. ^ "Quando Giampaolo era Maifredi" (in Italian). blog.guerinsportivo.it. 26 September 2013. Archived from the original on 30 September 2013.
  19. ^ Stellini, Lorenzo. "Biografia di Gigi Maifredi". Il Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 26 November 2017.
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