Pietro Vierchowod

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Born
1959 (66 years old)
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Calcinate, Italy

Position
Centre-Back

Status

Ethnicity
White

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Height
179 cm

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Sport

Soccer

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Description

Pietro Vierchowod Ufficiale OMRI (Ukrainian: П’єтро Верховод, romanized: P'etro Verkhovod, born 6 April 1959) is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a centre-back, and a manager. He represented the Italy national side during his career and was in the Italian squad that won the 1982 FIFA World Cup.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest Italian centre-backs of all-time, and one of the best of his generation, during his playing career he was nicknamed lo Zar ("the Tsar") because of his pace, defensive ability, physicality, tenacious playing style, and Ukrainian descent; he was the son of a Ukrainian Red Army soldier from Starobilsk.

Vierchowod was born in Calcinate, in the province of Bergamo. He is the son of a former Soviet prisoner of war. His father, Ivan Lukyanovych Verkhovod (Ukrainian: Іван Лук’янович Верховод), a Ukrainian, was taken prisoner during World War II, escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in northern Italy, and fought in a partisan detachment of the Italian Resistance. After the war he did not return to the USSR and settled in Lombardy.

Vierchowod was initially a man-marking centre-back, who also later excelled in a zonal-marking system. He started his professional football career for Como, before moving to Fiorentina. However, his first successes came when he moved to Roma, winning a Serie A scudetto in 1983. Then he moved to Sampdoria, with whom he won four Italian Cups, one European Cup Winners' Cup and another scudetto in 1991. In 1995, Vierchowod signed for Juventus, where he acted as an experienced defender and won his only UEFA Champions League in 1996 at the age of 37. He played the final in Rome against Ajax which Juve won on penalties.

Vierchowod then moved on to AC Milan and Piacenza, for whom he continued to play regularly until his early 40s. In the 1998–99 season, Vierchowod scored three goals in the last ten Serie A matchdays to help Piacenza win six out of the last ten league games, which was crucial in securing survival; his second goal was scored on 3 April 1999, just three days before his 40th birthday, in a 4–3 win over Udinese, and his third goal came in the final matchday, on 23 May, when Vierchowod, at the age of 40 years and 47 days, scored in a 1–1 draw against Salernitana, thus becoming the second 40-year-old player to score a Serie A goal after Silvio Piola, and currently sitting as the fifth oldest Serie A goalscorer behind Zlatan Ibrahimović, Alessandro Costacurta, Piola, and Fabio Quagliarella.

He eventually retired in 2000, aged 41. Vierchowod played 562 Serie A matches, and is the seventh-highest appearance holder of all time in Serie A, behind only to Paolo Maldini, Gianluigi Buffon, Francesco Totti, Javier Zanetti, Gianluca Pagliuca, and Dino Zoff.

Vierchowod was capped 45 times with the Italy national team between 1981 and 1993, scoring two goals. He made his international debut on 6 January 1981, at the age of 21, during a 1–1 friendly draw against the Netherlands in Montevideo, in the 1981 "Mundialito" tournament. He was one of the players in the Italian squad, although he did not play, that won the 1982 FIFA World Cup, under manager Enzo Bearzot. Vierchowod was a member of the Italian squad that took part at the 1986 FIFA World Cup and he also made three appearances at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, as Italy finished in third place on home soil, under manager Azeglio Vicini, after reaching the semi-finals. He is also the oldest goalscorer in the history of the Italy national team: he scored in a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification match against Malta on 24 March 1993, which ended in a 6–1 win for the Azzurri, under manager Arrigo Sacchi. Vierchowod also competed for Italy at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, where Italy managed a fourth-place finish, after reaching the semi-finals of the tournament, although he has never played for Italy in a UEFA European Championship.

After his playing career, Vierchowod coached Catania of Serie C1, Florentia Viola (now Fiorentina) of Serie C2 and Triestina of Serie B. In all of the circumstances, he left before the end of the season.

On 13 June 2014, Vierchowod was announced as the new coach of the Hungarian club, Budapest Honvéd, but after the team's poor performance and the lack of company support, he resigned on 6 October.

He then briefly served as head coach of FC Kamza between June and July 2018, He left the company because of issues with the management.

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