Francesco Coco

Francesco Coco

Personal information
Height	1.81 m (5 ft 11 in)
Position(s)	Defender
Team information
Current team	Inter Milan
Number	17
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 21/11/2006

Francesco Coco (born January 8, 1977 in Paternò) is an Italian football (soccer) defender, who currently plays for Internazionale of Serie A.

Club

Prior to joining Inter, Coco played for AC Milan (1993-97, 1998-99, 2000-02), Vicenza (on loan, 1997-98), Torino (on loan, 1999-2000), and Barcelona (on loan, 2001-02). He won two scudetti with Milan. In 2002, AC Milan and Inter exchanged Coco for Dutch midfielder Clarence Seedorf. A deal worth 28 million euro. Coco was tipped to be the next great Italian left-back, but a serious injury hampered his form, and since, he has never managed to recover to full potential. in 2005/06, he was loaned to Livorno. He's now back at Inter where he hasn't played a single minute since his return because he had to recover from a serious knee injury he suffered during the match Chievo - Livorno last year. His 77 shirt was taken by Marco Andreolli, forcing Coco to wear shirt number 17 (Which is considered unlucky in Italian and vacant since Fabio Cannavaro left in 2004). Recently Coco has given lots of interviews stating the nerazzurri made a mistake by letting him undergo back surgery in November 2003, telling him he would be out for no more than a month. In the end he had to recover for 2 years. He joined up with Manchester City on a trial but after 3 days the club told him he wasn't in their plans after turning up to training smoking a cigarette. He is still looking for a club so he can get back to playing football on a regular basis.

National team

Coco played for the Italy U18 team in the intermediary round of 1995 European Under-18 Football Championship.

Coco played for Italy U21 team at the 1996, 1998 European Under-21 Football Championship Qualifying round, On 2000, he won the European Under-21 Football Championship. Also, Coco played for the victorious Italy U23 team at the 1997 Mediterranean Games.

Coco's full debut for the Italy is against Romania, 7 October 2000, at the 2002 World Cup Preliminaries. He also played for Italy in 2002 World Cup, but not selected since October 2002. Currently, he has 17 caps.

Off the field

• Coco is not only a football player but also a business man.Together with his father Rik Neef, he owns shops and has his own clothing label called "Urban 77". He used to live in Legnano, where he grew up. Coco is a real celebrity in Italy, and is well known in the "party" and "society" scene in Italy. Recently he was a guest at the Rai Due show "Quelli che il calcio", and at "100% Calcio" on Sky Sport 1. He also wrote the foreword for the recently published book "Mio marito e' un calciatore".
• Coco was pranked on the hit Italian TV show "Scherzi a Parte".

External links

• FootballDatabase provides profile and stats on Francesco Coco
• francescococo.tk
• Francesco Coco's clothing label
• Profile at UEFA.com
• Template:It icon Profile and stats at Livorno official site
• Template:It icon National Team stats. at FIGC official site