Federico Marchetti-The Daily Ledger

Federico Marchetti (; born 7 February 1983) is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Maltese Premier League club Ħamrun Spartans.

Marchetti began his professional club career with Torino in 2002, and was subsequently loaned out to Pro Vercelli, Crotone, and Treviso. In 2005, he spent a season with Biellese, and later played for AlbinoLeffe and Cagliari, before moving to Lazio in 2011, where he won the Coppa Italia in 2013. At international level, he has represented Italy at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, at the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup (winning a bronze medal), and at UEFA Euro 2016.

Federico Marchetti

Club career

Early career

A Torino youth system trainee, Marchetti made his professional debut on loan to Pro Vercelli, being then loaned to a number of other Serie C1 and Serie C2 teams in the following years: he spent the 2003–04 season as second choice keeper with Crotone and later Treviso, without making a single appearance with any of these teams. He started the 2004–05 season as third-choice keeper Torino, making a single appearance in his time with the granata as a substitute; he then asked to be transferred in January 2005, after Torino signed another keeper, Gianluca Berti, and he was subsequently loaned to Pro Vercelli for the remainder of the season.

Federico Marchetti

AlbinoLeffe

In mid-2005, Torino which originally promoted to Serie A, went bankrupt and a new team started again in Serie B as successor, and all of the old Torino players were allowed to leave for free. He was signed by AlbinoLeffe and left for Biellese in co-ownership deal.

Federico Marchetti

In June 2006, he was bought back by Serie B club AlbinoLeffe, initially as reserve to Paolo Acerbis. In his first season with the celeste, he made 13 appearances, being successively promoted as first choice keeper the following season.

During the 2007–08 season, his performances proved to be instrumental in AlbinoLeffe's historic first qualification to the promotion playoffs, where his club narrowly missed promotion to Lecce. He subsequently won the Serie B best goalkeeper award, thus raising significant interest from top-flight teams.

Cagliari

In July 2008, Cagliari agreed a loan bid with AlbinoLeffe for the goalkeeper, with Cagliari having an option to buy 50% of players' rights to an agreed price.

In his first season in the Serie A, Marchetti confirmed his performances, firmly ensuring a place in the starting lineup, his performances being praised by several football pundits, being also defined by Gianluigi Buffon as his favourite Italian young goalkeeper. On 1 February 2010, Cagliari bought the remain rights from AlbinoLeffe.

However, he was frozen by the club in 2010–11 season, as his transfer request denied He became the third keeper, behind Michael Agazzi and Ivan Pelizzoli. He was unfrozen on 3 April 2011, winning Genoa as unused bench.

Lazio

Following the departure of their Uruguay international Fernando Muslera at the end of the 2010–11 season, Marchetti joined Lazio. President Claudio Lotito activated Marchetti's €5.2 million release clause. Marchetti arrived in Rome on 5 July to undertake a medical and sign a five-year contract. He described his move to Lazio as "the end of a nightmare". Marchetti played a terrific season for Lazio and his presence and command over the defence together with his numerous saves helped Lazio achieve two consecutive Europa League qualifications with 5th and 4th-place finishes in the 2010–11 and 2011–12 Serie A campaigns respectively.

Federico Marchetti's continued period of good form during the 2012–13 season saw become one of the club's protagonists; on 26 May 2013, he won the Coppa Italia with Lazio, keeping a clean sheet in a historic 1–0 Rome derby final victory against cross-city rivals Roma. His performances led him to be called up once again to the Italy national team.