Snapshot of the bench: Daniele De Rossi

It’s a slow news day and I’m saving my mindless attacks on things like the the FIFA ranking system for another day, so I thought I’d add a short ‘player profile’ for those that don’t live/breathe/eat sleep Italian Football. Hey, Totti gets enough ink already, right?

Without further ado… meet Daniele De Rossi, centrocampista for AS Roma. De Rossi has been in the Roma system for many a year (Daniele’s father Alberto was his first coach in the Roma youth squad, believe it or not) and made his debut for the parent club in 2003. So he’s far from unknown to those who keep close tabs on Serie A. He made his debut for the national side against Norway in 2004 at the age of 21 and never looked back, with 14 caps to his name at the moment. He has a terrific, hard shot – fairly unusual for a midfielder – and a terrific work rate.
He’ll likely be biding his time behind Gattuso in the ’06 version of the Azzurri, but you’ll be hearing from him.