Franchino Baresi is an Italian football youth team coach and a former player and manager. He mainly played as a sweeper or as a central defender, and spent his entire 20-year career with Serie A club AC Milan, captaining the club for 15 seasons. He is considered to be one of the best defenders of all-time. He was ranked 19th in World Soccer magazine's list of the 100 greatest players of the 20th century. With Milan, he won three UEFA Champions League titles, six Serie A titles, four Supercoppa Italiana titles, two European Super Cups and two International Cups, as well as a World Cup with Italy.
The Serie A, officially known as Serie A enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system. The winners are awarded the Coppa Campioni d'Italia trophy and the scudetto, a decoration that they wear on the jersey the season after the victory. It has been operating as a round-robin tournament for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had been organized by the Direttorio Divisioni Superiori until 1943, the Lega Calcio until 2010, and the Lega Serie A ever since. Serie A is regarded as one of the best football leagues in the world and it is often depicted as the most tactical and defensively sound national league. Serie A was ranked the world's best national league in 2023 by IFFHS, and is ranked second among European leagues according to UEFA's league coefficient – behind the Premier League, and ahead of La Liga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 – which is based on the performance of Italian clubs in the Champions League and the Europa League during the previous five years. Serie A led the UEFA ranking from 1986 to 1988 and from 1990 to 1999.
Championship Manager is a series of football management simulation video games, the first of which was released in 1992. The Championship Manager brand and game was conceived by brothers Paul and Oliver Collyer. In a scenario typical of many self-made game programming teams in the early days of the industry, the original Championship Manager game was written from their bedroom in Shropshire, England. The brothers subsequently founded a development company to take the game further, Sports Interactive, and moved to Islington, North London. Championship Manager became the most popular football management sim of the later 1990s and early 2000s, regularly setting sales records.
Football Manager, also known as Worldwide Soccer Manager in North America from 2004 to 2008, is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game began its life in 1992 as Championship Manager. Following the break-up of their partnership with original publishers Eidos Interactive, triggered by the fiasco release of Championship Manager 4 in 2003, Sports Interactive lost the naming rights to Eidos Interactive but retained the game engine and data, and re-branded the game Football Manager with their new publisher Sega. The latest version of Football Manager, titled Football Manager 2024, was released on 6 November 2023. Football Manager 2024 is the most played title in series history, clocking 7 million players by the end of February 2024.
Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly referred to as Sampdoria, is an Italian professional football club based in Genoa, Liguria. They compete in Serie B, the second division of the Italian football league system.
David Andrew Platt is an English retired football coach and player who played as a midfielder.
Alessandro Costacurta is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a defender.
Alen Bokšić is a former Croatian professional footballer. A forward who spent most of his career in France and Italy, he was renowned for his technique and power, and is regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the Croatia national football team.
Mauro Tassotti is an Italian manager and former footballer who played predominantly as a right back. He currently serves as an assistant coach at Genoa. After making his Serie A debut with Lazio, he went on to play with AC Milan for 17 years. He won 17 major titles with Milan, including five Serie A championships and three UEFA Champions League tournaments, reaching five finals in total. He is mostly remembered for his role alongside Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Alessandro Costacurta, Filippo Galli and Christian Panucci in the Milan backline under managers Arrigo Sacchi and Fabio Capello, forming what is considered by many in the sport to be one of the greatest defensive lineups of all time.
Pierluigi Casiraghi is an Italian professional football coach and former player who played as a striker.
Championship Manager is the first game in the Championship Manager series of football management simulation video games. The game was released in September 1992 on Atari ST and Amiga, and ported to MS-DOS soon after. The game was written by Paul and Oliver Collyer, the co-founders of Sports Interactive.
Championship Manager: Season 01/02 is a football management simulation video game in Sports Interactive's Championship Manager series. It was released for Microsoft Windows in October 2001, and for Mac in November 2001. It was later released on Xbox in April 2002. It was released as freeware in 2008. The game allowed players to take charge of any club in one of around 100 leagues across 27 countries, with responsibility for tactics and signings. The game sold more than 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom and is still popular and regularly updated.
Championship Manager 97/98 is a game in the Championship Manager series of football management simulation video games. Based on the Championship Manager 2 game engine, it was developed by Sports Interactive and released in October 1997, exclusively for the PC, as the final game in the second generation of Championship Manager games.
Francesco Baiano is an Italian football coach and former player who was last in charge at Varese. He played as a striker for several Italian clubs throughout his playing career, and he also played for Derby County in the Premier League, between 1997 and 1999.
Sorrento Calcio 1945 is an Italian association football club from Sorrento, Italy, which was founded as Sorrento Calcio in 1945. Currently the club plays in the Serie C Group C, the third tier of Italian club football.
Filippo Galli is an Italian football manager and former player, who played as a defender.
Marco Simone is an Italian professional football manager and former player. As a player, he was a striker and winger.
Giuseppe Iachini is an Italian professional football manager and former player in the role of midfielder.
Sophie Román Haug is a Norwegian professional footballer who plays as a forward for English Women's Super League club Liverpool and the Norway national team.
