Giovanni Tedesco

Giovanni Tedesco (born May 13 1972 in Palermo) is an Italy football (soccer) who currently plays for U.S. Città di Palermo of Serie A. He is a centre midfielder. His last name literally translates into "German".

Club career

Despite being a native of Palermo, Tedesco was initially refused by the local team, U.S. Città di Palermo, because of his thin build, and moved to Reggina Calcio. At Reggina, he quickly became a regular in 1990. After three seasons with Reggina (1 in Serie B, 2 in Serie C), Tedesco moved to ACF Fiorentina in 1993 and helped the team to win the Serie B league. The following season, he then debuted in Serie A in a 2-1 win against Cagliari Calcio on September 4 1994.

Successively, Tedesco has also played for U.S. Foggia, Salernitana Calcio and Perugia Calcio, where he stayed for six seasons and became popular as a valuable midfielder and team leader, especially during his time with Serse Cosmi as manager.

In January 2004, Tedesco was signed by Genoa C.F.C. of Serie B in an attempt to strengthen the team for the end of the season, which was seeing the rossoblu fighting for the promotion to Serie A. However, Tedesco only settle in with the arrival of Serse Cosmi, his former coach at Perugia, for the following season, who replaced Luigi De Canio who had not been able to maintain the team into the top table positions. Genoa eventually won Serie B in 2005. However the club was denied promotion and instead relegated to Serie C1 due to alleged match frauds. After relegation to Serie C1, Tedesco chose to stay and played in Genoa for the first half of the 2005–06 season before accepting an offer from Palermo which he would not have ever refused.

In January 8 2006, Tedesco played his 500th professional match, a home debut match against S.S. Lazio, which the club won 3-1, and he scored the second goal. His contract with Palermo, due to expire on June 2007, was renewed for one more year after the final matchday. He was later stated to have refused offers from several other clubs in order to stay in Palermo and expecting to end his playing career with the rosanero. On April 10 2008 he agreed terms with Palermo for another one-year extension of his contract with the rosanero.

Personal life

Giovanni Tedesco has two brothers who are also football players, Salvatore (formerly of Perugia and Lucchese) and Giacomo Tedesco, who is playing for Catania.