Author: Liam

Having gone through and already played in a number of different clubs and leagues around the world, Albert Riera at his 32 years of age has joined Udinese where he will be performing in what will probably be the last few years of his professional career. The Italian League is a new challenge for Riera who already has vast experience performing in top tier leagues around the world such as: Premier League and La Liga (Spanish League)

This time around Riera is going to be setting foot in a league where he has never played before as he signed a contract with the Italian side Udinese.

Before signing with Udinese, Riera performed with the New Zealand outfit Wellington Pheonix and he finished on a high note as the veteran winger was named as the best player for the club during his debut season in the team.

Albert Riera performed in the A-League All Stars match against Juventus which was played on August 10 and the Spanish footballer expressed his joy as he received the jersey of Andrea Pirlo at the end of the match.

Riera told reporters: “It was amazing; at halftime I went up to him when we were walking back to the changing room and he said no problem. At the end of the game we swapped shirts and chatted for a couple of minutes which was really special. I need to wash the shirt first and then frame it up. Manny got Patrice Evra’s shirt so he is very happy too.”

Andrea Pirlo is one of the most well-known figures of the Italian League and even at his 35 years of age, Pirlo still continues playing at a high level and is one of the most important players for Juventus with his precise free-kick and superb passing range.

It has been around 1 month since Udinese’s Antonio Di Natale made up his mind and continues to perform for the Italian club as the 36 year old forward has a few goals that he wants to accomplish before retiring.

When the Italian season concluded, Di Natale had already revealed to the media that he was thinking about hanging up his boots and step down from playing at a competitive level but the veteran attacker has now revealed that there still are things left to do in his career.

Antonio Di Natale said: “Three months ago I no longer had the wish to play, but then club owner Giampaolo Pozzo and my family made me change my mind. The people that are close to me have asked me to continue and to score my 200th goal. I am seven goals away from that mark. It would be fantastic to achieve that, but in order to do so I need to be well physically and prepare in the best possible way for the season. It would be amazing to equal the record of 205 Serie A goals set by Roberto Baggio.”

Even at his 36 years of age, Antonio Di Natale still plays a key role in Udinese as he was able on scoring 17 league goals in the previous season which was more goals than any other player of the entire squad.

Udinese has had a fairly busy transfer window as the Italian club secured the services of Pablo Armero, Juan Cuadrado, Cyril Thereau, Albert Riera, Alexis Zapata, Nicolas Lopez, Valerio Verre and Gabriel Torje.

The new head coach of the club, Andrea Stramaccioni is hoping that all of these arrivals will increase the performances of the team and have a better season than their previous campaign where they struggled on claiming victory and had to settle with the 13^th spot in the Italian League.