Mauro Bressan


Mauro Bressan is a retired Italian football player who played as a midfielder, and who worked as a director of sports for the Hungarian club Vasas SC.

Football career

His career peaked whilst playing for Fiorentina between 1999 and 2001; although he was not given many league starts, he did start in three Champions League games for the Italian side. Bressan's main fame comes from one of these games, in the 3–3 draw against Barcelona on 2 November 1999. After 14 minutes he scored what is considered one of the greatest goals of all time, a spectacular 25 yard bicycle kick. An ITV programme on the 50 greatest Champions League goals had it at number 2, behind Zinedine Zidane's title-winning volley against Bayer Leverkusen in the 2002 Champions League Final. Sky One also placed this goal as number 8 in their list of the 50 greatest Champions League goals. In the very same game against Barcelona, Bressan combined well with Abel Balbo, providing a spectacular backheel pass to assist Balbo in scoring Fiorentina's second goal of the game. He won the Coppa Italia with Fiorentina during the 2000–01 season.

Match fixing allegations and police arrest

On 1 June 2011 Bressan was arrested alongside fifteen other people in a police action regarding match fixing, following the outbreak of the 2011–12 Italian football scandal.

Honours

;Fiorentina