David Pizarro

David Marcelo Pizarro Cortes (born September 11, 1979 in Valparaiso, Chile) is a Chilean international football (soccer) player, who was a member of the national squad competing at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. He currently plays for Serie A giants A.S. Roma.

He usually plays as a deep lying playmaker but is often deployed further forward. He has outstanding vision, further helped with accurate passing.

He started his career as a playmaking midfielder with the Santiago Wanderers in Valparaiso, Chile. Then he had a short but successful spell with South American team Universidad de Chile (football club), where he debuted at the Copa Libertadores.

He had his first shot at UEFA with Udinese Calcio in Serie A. After experiencing great success with Udinese under the guide of master tactician Luciano Spalletti, Pizarro signed a four year contract with Internazionale Milano F.C] on July 14, 2005, for €12m and 50% of the rights of Goran Pandev, currently at SS Lazio. At the time, Pizarro claimed that he would like to retire in the nerazzurri shirt. However, he could hardly break into the starting XI of the Milan club. During his only season with Inter (2005-2006), Pizarro won the Italian championship (due to the aftermath of the Italian football scandal, known as Calciopoli), a Supercoppa and a Coppa Italia. In August 2006, he accepted a transfer to scudetto rivals A.S. Roma for €6.5m in a co-ownership deal. [euniting with former Udinese boss Luciano Spalletti, now in charge of the capital club. Following the success of the AS Roma 2006-07, which saw the team get to the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League 2006-07 finishing second in Serie A, and defeating former club Inter 7-4 on aggregate to win the Coppa Italiam Roma announced on 20 June 2007 that it would pay €5.75m to Inter over the next three seasons for its remaining share of Pizarro, who had played an important role in the club's successes. [ailing to qualifying for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, Pizarro said he would be retiring from international play. There were two main reasons for his decision: he disliked the seriousness of ex-coach Juvenal Olmos and the ex-president of the association Reinaldo Sanchez. Another main reason was the lack of compromise and responsibility from some or many of his other team mates, that took playing football as a mere reason for gaining popularity. He also claimed he wished to spend more time with his family.