Gian Piero Ventura is an Italian retired footballer who made his football debut professionally with FC Sestrese. Later, he became football manager and was last in charge of the Italy national team.
Gian Piero Ventura was born on 14th January 1948, in Genoa, Italy. His birth sign is Capricorn. Talking about his nationality, Ventura is an Italian and he belongs to white ethnicity.
Gian Piero Ventura had a keen interest in football since his childhood and started his youth footballing career with Sampdoria.
Following various youth level at Sampdoria, Ventura was promoted to the club’s main squad in 1968. However, he didn’t make any appearance for the club. The following year, he switched to Sestrese where he remained one season appearing in overall 29 games.
Before he retired from football, Ventura enjoyed a spell with Enn, Sanremese, and Novese.
In 1976, Ventura started his career as a football coach with Sampdoria youth team. He left Sampdoria in 1981 to begin a head coaching career, starting from several amateur teams from Liguria. He achieved first promotion to a professional league with Entella and Albenga.
Then, he became head coach of Spezia in 1987 but didn’t complete the season. Following his poor performance in the Centese, he was sacked by the club.
In the year 1993, Ventura signed Venezia. In his first season, he obtained sixth place however, his second season results were too poor which resulted in departure him from the club.
Subsequently, Ventura moved to Lecce, Cagliari, Sampdoria, Udinese, Cagliari, Napoli, Messina, Hellas Verona, and Pisa.
On 26th June 2009, Ventura arrived to manage Bari, replacing Antonio Conte. His first season with the club was one of the revelations of the season, finishing in tenth place on 50 points.
In his next season, 2010=11 campaign, Ventura was confirmed as head coach. On 6th January 2011, Bari won the “Derby di Puglia” over Lecce. On 10th February 2011, he was sacked by Bari.
On 6th June 2010, Ventura joined Serie B side Torino as a new manager, signing a 1-year contract. On 20th May 2012, he secured promotion to Serie A during the 2011-12 season after a 2-0 home win over Medina. The next season, Ventura led the club to a sixteenth position in the top flight following a 1-1 draw away with Chievo on 12th May 2013.
On 6th February 2014, Ventura signed an extension contract with Torino until 2016. In the 2013-14 seasons, he led the club to 7th position in Serie A as well as the qualifying rounds of the “2014-15 UEFA Europa League”.
In a 1-1 draw with Fiorentina, he celebrated his 100th match as a Torino head coach in Serie A, on 22nd February 2015. 4 days later, he takes history pleasure in winning the round of 32 of the “UEFA Europa League” following a 3-2 loss to Athletic Bilbao in Spain, qualifying his team for the next round.
Again on 16th November 2015, his contract was renewed until 30th June 2018. On 25th May 2016, he terminated his contract by mutual consent with Torino, having closed the 2015-16 season securing in 12th place.
On 18th July 2016, Ventura became the new coach of the Italy national team, replacing Antonio Conte and signing a 2-year contract with the Italian Football Federation. On 1st September, he made his debut for the national team against France in a 3-1 home win.
In the team’s opening “2018 FIFA World Cup” qualification, he won his first competitive match in charge of Italy in a draw away to Israel, on 5th September.
On 9th August 2017, he extended his contract until 2020. However, on 15th November, he was sacked following a 1-0 aggregate defeat to Sweden in the playoff which resulted Italy failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which was the very first time since the “1958 FIFA World Cup”. Some of the best players coached by him are Gianluigi Buffon, Claudio Marchisio, Giorgio Chiellini, and Ciro Immobile etc.
The sixty-eight-year-old Gian Piero Ventura tied the wedding knot with Luciana Lacriola in the year 2016. The wedding ceremony was royal and was officiated by a historical parish priest, Fr Franco Lanzolla, attended by many renowned faces including the president of Turin, Umberto Cario and many managers of Italian football.
As of now, the married couple is living a blissful life without and new and rumors of divorce.
Ventura has a daughter named Roberta Ventura from his previous relationship. His daughter was born 30 years ago in Genoa and graduate of “Bernini”. Roberta moved to Milan for some years while her father lives in Bari.
Gian Piero Ventura is a wealthy man. He has earned huge name, fame, and wealth through his professional career as a football manager. As of 2017, he has an estimated net worth around $5 million.
He used to earn €0.8 million as salary while working at Geona as a manager. His salary as the coach of national team was around € 800,000 ($943,000) and will receive the salary until the end of 2018 as mentioned in the contract.
