Bolton Wanderers’ Former Italians

England take on the Italians today, lets look at those Italians who have played for Bolton Wanderers, lets take a quick look at each.

Enzo Gambaro

The defender’s time at Bolton was hardly spectacular, I mean he only made the single appearance for the club on loan in the 1995-96 Premier League season. His career began in 1984 with Sampordia and took in the likes of AC Milan and Napoli during the early 90s. The club he made his biggest impact for was Parma who he made over 100 appearances for.

Gaetano Giallanza

Giallanza was born in Switzerland but is of Italian decent. Rather like Gambaro he failed to make any real impact at Bolton making only a couple of appearances while on loan in 1998. The striker failed a register a Bolton goal in these appearances and quickly disappeared off to Norwich City where he also struggled to make an impact. He spent most of his career in Switzerland including two spells with BSC Young Boys. He never hung around anywhere long though, spending only one or two years with any club at a time.

Emanuele Morini

There seems to be a growing trend here as Morini also only made a couple of appearances for the club and the striker failed to grab a goal. He was signed by Sam Allardyce for his first top flight season with the club having previously been on Roma’s books. His career took in 16 teams with his longest spells being for Lumezzane and Sambenedettese in the Italian lower leagues. His most prolific spell came when he returned to Rome with Lupa Roma, a club who have been founded three times and live in the Italian lower tiers.

Francesco Pisano

Photo by Dino Panato/Getty Images

Here is a player people will be more familiar with given how recently he played for Wanderers, although I doubt he will stand the test of time having made only a handful of appearances. His tough tackling made people like him during his short spell in one of the worst sides in Bolton’s 144 year history.

Before joining Bolton he had spent his entire career at Cagliari making over 200 appearances for his hometown club while they were in the Italian top flight. He is now playing for Olbia in Italy’s third tier. Pisano is the only one of the four to have appeared for Italy internationally, all be it only at under 21 level.