page_title: Alberto Gilardino
section_title: Prandelli era
hierarchical_section_title: Alberto Gilardino / International career / Prandelli era
caption_attribution_description: Português: Itália e Haiti fazem amistoso no Estádio São Januário: Alberto Gilardino. Italiano: Amichevole tra le Nazionali di calcio di Italia e Haiti allo Stadio São Januário di Rio de Janeiro: Alberto Gilardino.
context_page_description: Alberto Gilardino Ufficiale OMRI is an Italian professional football manager and a former player who played as a striker, currently head coach of Serie C club Pro Vercelli.
  A prolific goalscorer, in Gilardino's early career he was compared to Filippo Inzaghi due to his opportunism, positional sense and eye for goal. Gilardino currently holds the record for being the tenth-youngest player to have scored 100 goals in Serie A, a feat which he managed at the age of 26 years and 105 days. With 188 Serie A goals, Gilardino is currently among the top 10 all-time scorers in Serie A history. His trademark goal celebration saw him get to his knees and play an imaginary violin.
  Gilardino has played for several Italian clubs throughout his career. He first came to prominence during his time at Parma due to his consistent goalscoring, which earned him the Serie A Young Footballer of the Year Award in 2004, followed by the Serie A Footballer of the Year and the Serie A Italian Footballer of the Year Awards in 2005, as well as a move to Milan. With Milan, he won the 2006–07 UEFA Champions League, the 2007 UEFA Super Cup and the 2007 FIFA Club World Cup.
context_section_description: After the embarrassment that was the 2010 World Cup, Cesare Prandelli was chosen as Italy's new coach. On 7 September 2010, Gilardino scored the first goal in the 5–0 victory against the Faroe Islands in the second qualification match for Euro 2012. On 29 March 2011, Gilardino was made captain in a friendly match between Ukraine-Italy (0–2) held in Kiev, 30 years since a Fiorentina player (Giancarlo Antognoni) last held the Azzurri captaincy.
  As result of his good form after his arrival at Bologna, Gilardino was called back to the national team, alongside his teammate Alessandro Diamanti. On 7 October 2012, after an absence of over a year, Gilardino was called up again for the 2014 World Cup qualifying matches against Armenia and Denmark. On 6 February, in the friendly against the Netherlands, Gilardino came on as a sub in the final minutes, providing an assist for Marco Verratti's equaliser. On 31 May 2013, Gilardino scored a goal in Azzurri's 4–0 victory against San Marino.
  After the positive performance against San Marino, Gilardino was called up for the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil by Prandelli on 3 June 2013. He came on for Mario Balotelli in the second half for the first group match against Mexico on 16 June. After Balotelli's injury, Gilardino took his place for all of Italy's subsequent matches, including the semi-final against Spain, and the victorious third place match against Uruguay.
  On 6 September 2013, as Mario Balotelli and Pablo Daniel Osvaldo were suspended, Gilardino made the starting eleven for the match against Bulgaria, qualifying for the 2014 World Cup, his first half goal sealing a 1–0 win for the Azzurri. This goal helped Gilardino to overtake Roberto Bettega on the all-time leading scorers' list of the Italian national team, and made him the first Genoa player to score a goal for the Azzurri since Riccardo Carapellese scored in the match against France on 12 February 1956.
caption: Gilardino playing as Italy's captain in 2013 during a friendly match versus Haiti.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2016:05:19 00:19:13", "Image ExifOffset": "172", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "310", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7917", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "780", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1069"}