Paolo Palmacci

Paolo Palmacci
Palmacci at a BSWW Tour event in 2017.
Personal information
Full name Paolo Palmacci
Date of birth (1984-05-17) 17 May 1984 (age 40)
Place of birth Latina, Italy[1]
Height 1.71 m (5 ft 7 in)[2]
Position(s) Midfielder[2]
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
2005–2016 Terracina
2017–2019 Catania
2021– Napoli
International career‡
2006– Italy 282 (229)

Note: Only domestic clubs are shown.
*Club domestic league appearances and goals
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 27 June 2021[3]

Paolo Palmacci (born 17 May 1984), is an Italian beach soccer player who plays as a midfielder, having originally started as a forward.[4]

He has appeared at eight editions of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup representing the Italy national team, earning a silver medal on two occasions (2008 and 2019), and, as of 2023, is the most-capped Italian player ever.[3]

Career

Palmacci began playing football aged six; he originally pursued professional association football, making appearances in both Serie D and Serie C1.[5] In 2003, aged 19, he started playing beach soccer, in his hometown of Terracina.[4][5]

Club

In 2005, Palmacci began competing for Terracina's beach soccer club in the LND Serie A, Italy's national beach soccer league.[6]

He was Serie A's second top scorer in the 2010 and 2011 seasons;[7] in the latter, he won the domestic treble with the club (league, cup and super cup).[5] In 2015, he was awarded as the best player of the Serie A season.[8] In total, he won nine trophies with Terracina, scoring 196 goals.[7] After 11 years with the club, Palmacci made a "shock" move to rival club Catania in 2017.[9] He won another three trophies with the club before moving to Napoli in 2021.[8]

As of 2023, he has registered goals in 18 consecutive league seasons, totalling over 300, second on the all-time scorers list behind Gabriele Gori. That year, he was named a "Legend of Serie A Beach Soccer" by LND.[8]

International

Palmacci during a friendly match vs. Iran in 2013.

Palmacci was first called up to the Italy national team in 2006,[1] aged 22, for an exhibition tournament in Réunion.[10] He was subsequently a surprise inclusion in Italy's final 12-man squad for the 2006 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup a month later.[11]

At the 2008 World Cup, he scored his self-proclaimed favourite ever beach soccer goal, an overhead kick in the quarter-final victory over France.[4][9] Italy reached their first World Cup final at said edition, and he scored one of his team's three goals in the defeat against Brazil.[12]

Palmacci survived new Italy head coach Massimiliano Esposito's purging of the squad in 2010 to find himself as one of the most experienced members of the national team come the time of the 2011 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup; he was Italy's top scorer at the tournament with seven goals.[13]

Palmacci became Italy's all-time record appearance maker at the 2015 European Games in Baku, overtaking the previous holder Michele Leghissa's 162 caps.[7][14] A few weeks later at the 2015 World Cup in Espinho, Portugal, he infamously missed the crucial spotkick in the penalty shootout loss against Tahiti in the semi-final.[15][16]

At the 2017 World Cup qualifiers in September 2016, Palmacci reached 189 goals for his country, becoming Italy's all-time record goalscorer, surpassing Roberto Pasquali.[17] He also made his 200th appearance for Italy at the tournament, against Poland in the semi-finals.[6] He held the scoring record for two and a half years until he relinquished it to Gabriele Gori.[18] In 2017, Palmacci reached the milestone of 200 goals for Italy in an 11–4 victory against Ukraine during the Superfinal of the Euro Beach Soccer League.[19]

In 2018, he scored Italy's last penalty of the shootout win versus Spain in the final of the Euro Beach Soccer League to help seal the title, the biggest of Palmacci's international career.[16] In 2019, he was one of just two surviving Italian players to play in the World Cup final against Portugal, having also played Italy's only previous final in 2008.[20] Palmacci's final appearance to date for Italy came during the team's unsuccessful World Cup qualifying campaign in June 2021.[3]

Style of play

Palmacci has been described as "agile and quick, with great acrobatic skills... the prototype of the ideal beach soccer striker."[18]

Statistics

Competition Year Apps Goals Ref.
FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Brazil 2006 3 1 [1]
Brazil 2007 3 3
France 2008 6 5
United Arab Emirates 2009 4 3
Italy 2011 4 7
Portugal 2015 6 4
The Bahamas 2017 5 5
Paraguay 2019 6 0
Total 37 28 —

Honours

As of 2019 season

The following is a selection, not an exhaustive list, of the major honours Palmacci has achieved with Italy:

Team

Individual

References

  1. ^ a b "Latina, la Nazionale italiana di beach soccer a Formia per uno stage al campo Coni". Il Messaggero (in Italian). 26 February 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  2. ^ a b "FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Paraguay 2019 – List of Players" (PDF). FIFA.com. 15 November 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 November 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  3. ^ a b c "La Nazionale Italiana di Beach Soccer" (PDF). Viareggio Beach Soccer (in Italian). 16 May 2022. Retrieved 19 January 2024.
  4. ^ a b c "Intervista a Paolo Palmacci, il recordman dell'ItalBeach!". Italian Football Federation (in Italian). 29 July 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  5. ^ a b c "PAOLO PALMACCI - EQUIPE D'ITALIE DE BEACH SOCCER : " LE BEACH SOCCER C'EST MERVEILLEUX"". Number5.fr (in French). 25 June 2012. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  6. ^ a b "Paolo Palmacci nella Hall of Fame dei Mondiali". Lega Nazionale Dilettanti (in Italian). 10 February 2017. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  7. ^ a b c "Conosciamo meglio gli azzurri: i centrocampisti". Lega Nazionale Dilettanti (in Italian). 4 September 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  8. ^ a b c "Paolo Palmacci, Gianni Fruzzetti e Giuseppe Platania, Legends della Serie A Beach Soccer FIGC-LND". Lega Nazionale Dilettanti (in Italian). 26 October 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  9. ^ a b "Acquisto shock della Domusbet Catania: Paolo Palmacci!". Lega Nazionale Dilettanti (in Italian). 17 May 2017. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  10. ^ "Gli azzurri volano all'Ile de La Reunion". Lega Nazionale Dilettanti (in Italian). October 2006. Archived from the original on 18 September 2007. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  11. ^ "FIFA WORLD CUP: Lunedì si parte, ecco i convocati". Lega Nazionale Dilettanti (in Italian). November 2006. Archived from the original on 18 September 2007. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  12. ^ "Brazil rule the world". FIFA. 27 July 2008. Archived from the original on 19 May 2021. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  13. ^ "Paolo Palmacci: Můj recept na góly? Trénink a hlad po vítězství". Beach Soccer Czech (in Czech). 22 May 2012. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  14. ^ Stacul, Lica (26 June 2015). "Zurlo, ancora una prodezza! Rovesciata decisiva e l'Italia gode - Eurosport". Eurosport (in Italian). Retrieved 30 January 2024.
  15. ^ "Gori fa 100 in azzurro ma il sogno Mondiale si infrange ai rigori. In finale ci va Tahiti". Versiliatoday.it (in Italian). 19 July 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2024.
  16. ^ a b "Le emozioni degli Azzurri dopo il trionfo Europeo: "Una vittoria che questo gruppo meritava"". Italian Football Federation (in Italian). 10 September 2018. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  17. ^ "Italia ai Mondiali 2017. Paolo Palmacci nella storia..." AnxurTime (in Italian). 12 September 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  18. ^ a b "World Cup Beach Soccer, conosciamo meglio tutti gli azzurri mondiali". Sky Sport (in Italian). 20 November 2019. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  19. ^ "Beach soccer: le 200 perle di Paolo Pablito Palmacci. L'italia vola all'Europeo". AnxurTime (in Italian). 15 September 2017. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  20. ^ "L'Italia a un passo dalla vetta del Mondo. Oggi in Paraguay gli Azzurri si contendono il titolo con il Portogallo". Italian Football Federation (in Italian). 1 December 2019. Retrieved 17 May 2021.