On 21 December 1981, Cristian Zaccardo, someone who would become a world champion with Italy in 2006 under Marcello Lippi, was born in Formigine in the province of Modena.

After coming through Bologna’s youth ranks, he moved to Palermo in 2004. While in Sicily, he completed his development as a player and managed to win his first call-up to the National Team. After signing for Wolfsburg in 2008, he returned to Italy a year later: after wearing the Parma shirt, he joined Milan. Having made 17 appearances for the Rossoneri, he moved to Carpi in 2015, a club who had just secured promotion to Serie A.

After joining the Italian youth setup at the age of 15, he went on to take part in the Mediterranean Games held in Tunis in 2001, with Italy coming away with a silver medal.

Three years later, he was part of Claudio Gentile’s Under-21 European Championship squad in 2004, a tournament that the Azzurrini won. On 17 November 2004, he made his senior Italy debut in a friendly against Finland. Following this, he was regularly deployed by Head Coach Marcello Lippi, and he scored his first Azzurri goal against Finland in Palermo on 8 October 2005, when Italy secured their place at the 2006 World Cup.

After being named in Lippi’s 23-man squad for the tournament, Zaccardo featured three times as Italy became world champions.