Eight Things You Don’t Know About Chelsea Target Marco Amelia
Chelsea have been incessantly suffering in the English Premier League and have been conceding goals unnecessarily and losing matches to make them just a bit above the relegation zone. This has been because of an injury to number one goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois who will be out of action till January and with Asmir begovic coming in to the squad and youngster Jamal Blackman backing him up. The team has therefore decided to go in search of a goalkeeper and has apparently found one in the free transfer market.
Chelsea have reportedly snagged up former AC Milan goalkeeper and world-cup winner Marco Amelia on a free transfer and fans might be of the opinion that the player might not really make any difference at the Stamford Bridge because of his age and huge lack of match fitness and inexperience in the English Premiership.
Here are eight things therefore you might need to know about Chelsea new goalkeeper, Marco Amelia:
- He’s worshipped in Italy
Marco Amelia was Italy’s number one goalkeeper in 2004 at the Under 21 European Championships and undoubtedly helped Italy to win the tournament. He then went with the Olympic team to the Athens Olympics a month later and claimed a bronze medal from the competition.
He was part of the Italian team that won the World-cup in 2006 but was number three goalkeeping choice at the time and this is forgivable as he had Gianluigi Buffon and Angelo Peruzzi ahead of him in the team at the time. He last featured in the Italian team in 2009 against New Zealand and has a total of nine international caps.
- He has won the Serie A
Marco Amelia has played in the Serie A with Livorno, Palermo and Genoa and turned out impressively for the three teams but finally went on to AC Milan in 2010 where he was battling it with Christian Abbiati. Amelia made 29 league appearances in four years for Milan and finally had to leave, not understanding why he had to struggle for first place even with the fact that he was a fantastic goalkeeper.
- He was voted the Second Best goalkeeper in Italy in 2006
The 2006 season gave Buffon the best goalkeeper award in the Serie A while Amelia won the Second best. This is obviously a major feat as he came Second to legendary Buffon, therefore, it is understood that he is a goalkeeper of class.
- He was a player/president for an Italian amateur side…
Amelia decided to try his hand at the sixth tier of Italian football, and signed for Rocca Priora where he also became their technical director and was still a goalkeeper.
- His last Game was six months ago…
Amelia joined Seria B side Perugia in February and turned out impressively for them and made his last match on April 28 of this year.
- He tried to sign Mario Balotelli this summer…
After leaving Perugia, he became honorary president at Lupa Castelli Romani, a side that plays in the Italian Lega Pro division.
He decided that the club stature was big enough to accomplish anything and decide to make attempts to sign his former teammate, Mario Balotelli as a striker in to the club form Liverpool.
According to him, he felt Balotelli needed to start afresh.
- He’s an attacking Goalkeeper
With Chelsea lacking in goals and options up front, it will be fun to see a goalkeeper that runs forward to join the attack in scoring goals. He has played as a striker for Roma youth team before and scored a last minute equaliser for Livorno in a UEFA Cup game against Partizan Belgrade in 2006 and he even used to play as a striker in Roma’s youth team to boot.
- 193,000 people follow him on Twitter
With Chelsea’s lack of fans friendliness at the moment, his huge twitter followership might endear more fans to Chelsea and make people more in tune with Chelsea and manager Jose’s Mourinho’s decisions.
It is hoped that Marco Amelia will bring something into the Chelsea squad and this team might start doing well again as they defend their title and very soon, the English Premiership fans will be able to tell if this was a good decision or a terrible one or a panic situation transfer.