Luciano Spalletti (; born 7 March 1959) is an Italian football manager and a former player. He is currently the manager of Italian Serie A club Napoli. Playing career Born in Certaldo, Metropolitan City of Florence, Spalletti started his career as a semi-professional footballer in his mid-20s. Despite relatively old age for a professional debut, he managed to have played for several Serie C teams such as Entella, Spezia, Viareggio and Empoli. After nearly a decade of lower-tier football in Italy, he retired in 1993 and remained at Empoli as a coach. Coaching career Early career Spalletti's early career in management led him to struggling Empoli, where he was head coach between July 1993 and June 1998. He led the Tuscan side to consecutive promotions from Serie C1 to the top-flight Serie A. Spalletti then coached Sampdoria from July 1998 to June 1999, and Venezia from July to October 1999. Spalletti had two spells as head coach at Udinese. The first was between March 2001 and June 2001, the second between July 2002 and June 2005. There was a period at Ancona in between spells. It was at Udinese where he really began to make an impact as a manager. During the 2004–05 season, Spalletti guided Udinese to a sensational fourth-placed finish in Serie A, exceeding expectations and securing a spot in the UEFA Champions League. Spalletti became coach of Roma in June 2005. Roma Such success for a traditionally unexceptional side with limited resources attracted the attention of Roma. The capital side had come off a disappointing season, in which four different coaches had spells in charge of the club. Spalletti was offered the task of attempting to bring order to this chaotic side. After an uninspiring first half of the 2005–06 season, he changed the team's tactics to suit a more offensive playing style, rather than a defensive-minded system. Spalletti's favoured formation was the 4–2–3–1 system, which used four defenders, two defensive midfielders, two wingers (both sides of the 3), one attacking midfielder, and one striker Francesco Totti, who typically functioned also as an attacking midfielder in previous seasons. As such, the team played without any real striker, as Totti occupied what later came to be described as a false-9 role. This system proved effective for Roma upon its introduction during the 2005–06 season, as on 26 February 2006, Roma broke the Serie A record for most consecutive