Giovanni Tedesco

Giovanni Tedesco

Tedesco with Birkrikara in July 2015
Personal information
Date of birth	(1972-05-13) May 13, 1972 (age 44)
Place of birth	Palermo, Italy
Height	1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)
Playing position	Centre Midfielder
Club information
Current team	Floriana (head coach)
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1990–1993	Reggina	74	(6)
1993–1995	Fiorentina	47	(2)
1995–1997	Foggia	63	(5)
1997–1998	Salernitana	41	(3)
1998–2004	Perugia	152	(24)
2004–2006	Genoa	77	(9)
2006–2010	Palermo	78	(9)
Teams managed
2012	Foligno
2014–2015	Floriana
2015	Birkirkara
2016	Palermo
2016–	Floriana
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Giovanni Tedesco (born May 13, 1972 in Palermo) is an Italian former footballer in the role of centre midfielder and current head coach of Maltese club Floriana.

Despite being a native of Palermo, Tedesco was initially refused by the local team, Palermo, because of his thin build, and moved to Reggina. At Reggina, he quickly became a regular in 1990. After three seasons with Reggina (1 in Serie B, 2 in Serie C1), Tedesco moved to Fiorentina in 1993 and helped the team to win the Serie B league. The following season, he then debuted in Serie A in a 2–1 win against Cagliari on September 4, 1994.

Successively, Tedesco has also played for Foggia, Salernitana and Perugia, where he stayed for six seasons and became popular as a valuable midfielder and team leader, especially during his time with Serse Cosmi as manager.

In January 2004, Tedesco was signed by Genoa of Serie B in an attempt to strengthen the team for the end of the season, which was seeing the rossoblu fighting for the promotion to Serie A. However, Tedesco only settle in with the arrival of Serse Cosmi, his former coach at Perugia, for the following season, who replaced Luigi De Canio who had not been able to maintain the team into the top table positions. Genoa eventually won Serie B in 2005. However the club was denied promotion and instead relegated to Serie C1 due to alleged match frauds. After relegation to Serie C1, Tedesco chose to stay and played in Genoa for the first half of the 2005–06 season before accepting an offer from Palermo which he would not have ever refused.