Matteo Ferrari

Matteo Ferrari (born 5 December 1979) is an Italian former footballer who played as a defender He played top-flight football for several Italian clubs in Serie A, Everton of the Premier League, and for the Montreal Impact in Major League Soccer.

He was usually deployed as a centre-back, although he was capable of playing anywhere along the back-line.

His father died in 1993 when Matteo was 14.

He grew up in Ferrara and has a brother who was a football player.

Ferrari started his career at SPAL in 1995, and he can play as left-back or centreback.

It has all the rigmarole of youth teams, from young students: the coach of the time, Luigi Pasetti, employed him as a central striker and the player scored 37 goals in the league before switching back to defense.

F.C. Internazionale Milano brought him to their youth system, later farming him to Genoa C.F.C. (in co-ownership), U.S. Lecce (in co-ownership) and A.S. Bari (loan).

He made his Serie A debut on 29 August 1999, A.C. Fiorentina 1–0 A.S. Bari where Ferrari played the full match.

Ferrari played for Italy at the Summer Olympics in 2000 and 2004, winning Bronze at the latter edition of the tournament.

He went back to Inter in summer 2000, making 27 appearances in all competition, but failed to stay, this time sold to Parma AC in co-ownership deal, for 9 billion lire (€4,648,112).

That season Parma also signed Sébastien Frey from Internazionale for 40 billion lire (€20,658,275; cash plus Sérgio Conceição) and sold Gianluigi Buffon and Lilian Thuram to Juventus.

He also made 11 full international appearances for his country between 2002 and 2004, featuring in the Italian squad that took part at Euro 2004.

Matteo Ferrari is the Algeria-born son of an Italian petroleum engineer and a mother originally from Guinea.

His father worked in various countries throughout Africa because of his vocation.

A permanent transfer was made because of his good performance in May 2002, for €5.7 million.

That season, Inter also sent Adriano and Vratislav Greško to Parma (in co-ownership deal for €8.8 million and definite deal for €16 million ), and signed Fabio Cannavaro (undisclosed) and Matías Almeyda (for €16 million ) from the Emilia side.

In three seasons as a starter for Parma, Ferrari appeared in 81 league matches and scored 3 goals.

At Parma, Ferrari led his team win their first National convenor.

On 31 July 2004, he joined A.S. Roma for €7.25 million fee.

He also signed a contract worth €2.965 million annually in gross.

(Part of the fee paid via Damiano Ferronetti going in the opposite direction and the loan of Cesare Bovo on the same day ), as a replacement of Walter Samuel who went to Real Madrid.

He failed to give the performances he had delivered in Parma in his first season with the capital club.

Despite facing a transfer ban blocking Roma from signing players, on 24 August 2005, the Giallorossi loaned him to UEFA Champions League competitor Everton for €200,000, with an option to purchase for €5.5 million.

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 which kept him out of action.

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

Ferrari came back to Roma at the beginning of the season 2006–07 as Roma finished 2nd in the previous season and qualified for 2006–07 UEFA Champions League group stage (benefited due to the scandal) and was first choice central-back partnered with Philippe Mexès, while Cristian Chivu as leftback or centre-back and Christian Panucci as the primary right-back, with Marco Cassetti as replacement.

Roma also sent experienced Samuel Kuffour out on loan and sold Leandro Cufré.

Ferrari played 27 time in Serie A, 24 of them were starters, helping Roma to achieve second place in Serie A and winning the Coppa Italia.

His erratic performance and poor security that has given in defense earned him the nickname Svirgolone as he could not show the same brilliant game during his time at Parma.

In April 2006 Everton FC manager David Moyes was talking about the summer transfer campaign on evertonfc.com and said that based on player performance he had already decided which players he wanted to keep.

"Players are always playing for their future in some way, but we know exactly what they can do and I don't think what happens in the last month of the season will make a big difference to what I have decided."

–David Moyes

In May 2006, Moyes told evertonfc.com, the official site of Everton FC, that Ferrari loan would not be extended.

As his contract with Roma expired at the end of 2007–08 Serie A season.

They have a son named Aron, born in 2008.

Eventually, Ferrari decided to sign with Genoa for the 2008–09 Serie A season on a free transfer.

Following his move to Genoa, Ferrari made his debut on the opening game of the season on 31 August 2008 in a 1–0 loss against Catania.

During his time at Genoa, Ferrari had disciplinary issues with 6 yellow card and 2 red card.

Ferrari and Venezuelan model Aída Yéspica re-united in December 2009.