Morgan De Sanctis

Club

_Retired Soccer

Position

Goalkeeper

Nationality

Italy

Date of birth

1977-03-26

Birthplace

Guardiagrele, Italy

Height

190 cm

Weight

78 kg

Signing / transfer fee

Retired

Morgan De Sanctis (Italian pronunciation: ; born 26 March 1977) is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He last played for Ligue 1 club Monaco, and currently works as sporting director for Salernitana.

De Santis played for several Italian clubs throughout his career; he began his career with Pescara, and later also played for Juventus, Udinese, Napoli, and Roma; he also had spells in Spain and Turkey with Sevilla and Galatasaray respectively, and ended his career in France after a season with Monaco in 2017.

At international level, he has represented the Italian national team, and was included in squads for the 2000 Summer Olympics, UEFA Euro 2008, the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, the 2010 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012.

At youth level, De Sanctis represented the Italy under-21 side on 7 occasions between 1999 and 2000, and won the 2000 UEFA European Under-21 Championship with the team. He was also part of the Italy squad that took part at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

De Sanctis never became a regular in the Italian senior national team due to the consistency of Gianluigi Buffon, and therefore often served as a back-up keeper. De Sanctis made his senior international debut for Italy on 30 March 2005, under manager Marcello Lippi, in a 0–0 friendly draw against Iceland. Although he did not make Lippi's 23-man squad for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, he was chosen as one of the four back-up players to be called up in the event of an injury to Buffon, Angelo Peruzzi or Marco Amelia. After the 2006 FIFA World Cup, he secured a place as the team's number two goalkeeper to travel with the Italian squad to UEFA Euro 2008, under Roberto Donadoni, as well as the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2010 FIFA World Cup, under Lippi. Although Buffon suffered an injury in the opening match of the latter tournament, De Sanctis did not feature in any matches, as Federico Marchetti was instead chosen to start; Italy were eliminated in the first round.

The team's subsequent coach Cesare Prandelli preferred to include younger understudies, such as Antonio Mirante and Salvatore Sirigu, to Buffon, instead of De Sanctis. However, after injury to Emiliano Viviano, De Sanctis returned to the squad as Buffon's back-up for UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying matches in September 2011, and also appeared in Italy's 3–0 friendly win against Northern Ireland in Pescara on 11 October, three years after his last cap for Italy. He eventually ma