Italian striker Cristiano Lucarelli began his football career as a 17 year old with regional club Cuoiopelli where he managed to impress by scoring five times in 28 games over a season.
His first big break came when Perugia signed him in the summer of 1993. He was part of the squad which earned promotion to the Italian Serie B in 1994, but he endured three unfruitful seasons at the club and eventually left for Cosenza in 1996.
From 1996 to 1999, Lucarelli played for four different clubs, including g Valencia in La Liga. He enjoyed relative success in front of goal wherever he went.
In the summer of 1999, he returned home to Italy and signed for Lecce to play Serie A football for the first time in his career. Over three seasons, he became a crowd favorite at Lecce, though persistent injuries limited his league appearances to just 59. Nevertheless, he still managed 26 league goals during his time at Lecce.
In the summer of 2001, he was on the move again, this time to Torino FC. In the 2002/03 season, Torino finished last in Serie A and Lucarelli let to join his hometown club, Livorno, which was then a Serie B side.
In his debut season, he spearheaded Livorno push for promotion and scored an incredible 29 goals in 38 matches. He finished the season as the Serie B top-scorer and Livorno reached Serie A for the first time since 1949.
In the 2004/05 season, Livorno finished eighth in Serie A and Lucarelli won the Golden Boot award with 24 goals. The following season, the club went two spots better to finish sixth and qualified for Europe for the first time in their history.
In April this year, Lucarelli netted his 100th Serie A goal in a match against Catania.
However, Lucarelli’s seemingly perfect relationship with the team soured after a conflict with club president Aldo Spinelli over the sacking of coach Daniele Arrigoni. And it became permanently damaged a month later when Livorno were accused of match-fixing by their own fans after a 1-1 home draw with Reggina.
Lucarelli, hurt by the fans’ criticism, reiterated his plans to leave Livorno at the end of the season.
On July 13, Lucarelli agreed to join Ukraine side Shakhtar Donetsk for £6million, signing a three year contract worth £2.8million a season, hence becoming the first Italian to play in Ukraine. The shocking news sparked a flood of negative responses from fans on his official website.
But Lucarelli’s response was, “I am going, but I didn’t hold a gun to anyone’s head. Shakhtar signed me for a figure that was below my buy-out clause of my contract. That means the club made a its consideration that £6million was good for a player going on 32.”
Clearly, Lucarelli was given no choice but to leave his beloved club.
Still. Lucarelli was somewhat a cult figure during his time at Livorno, given that he hails from the small town himself.
He had also shown immense loyalty to the club, when he rejected multi-million offers from other clubs to join Livorno in the summer of 2003.
On his move to Livorno, Lucarelli was famously quoted saying to the media, “Some football players pay a billion for a Ferrari or a yacht, with that money I bought myself Livorno’s shirt. That’s all.”
Football clubs in Italy are usually linked to a different political ideology and Livorno is no different. Traditionally, Livorno supporters are known for their support for left-wing politics and are often considered pro-communist.
Lucarelli shares that support with the club’s fans andis known to be an admirer of South American revolutionary Che Guevara, a symbolic icon for the leftists. In the 1997, after scoring a goal for the Italian U21 team, he pulled his shirt over his face to reveal a T-shirt with Che Guevara’s image on it.
His normal goal celebrations consist of a dual clenched-fist salute, a gesture made famous by those who support communism.
Throughout his time at Livorno, Lucarelli donned the number 99 shirt and has a personal webpage named 99amaranto, “Amaranto” being Livorno’s nickname. The number 99 is a homage to a group of supporters of Livorno, known as Brigate Autonome Livornesi, which was founded in 1999. This group of fans is sometimes termed as the “ultras”, a group of fanatic fans who are often involved in crowd trouble.
A professional player who shares the passion for a club like Lucarelli, and who is not ashamed to express his political beliefs openly, is indeed very hard to come by this day and age.