Eder Citadin Martins
Éder Citadin Martins, simply known as Éder, is a professional footballer, who plays as a striker for the Italian national team. He began his career with Brazilian club Criciúma, and moved to Italian club Empoli in January 2006, spending the remainder of his career in the country.Éder was born in Brazil, but qualifies to play for Italy through his Italian passport and more than two-years of residency in Italy. He made his international debut for Italy in March 2015, and scored two goals in their successful qualification campaign for UEFA Euro 2016, also being selected for the final tournament.
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Eder while at Empoli finished the 2009–10 Serie B season as top scorer, with 27 goals, before he moved to Brescia. He spent in Brescia only one season where he scored just six goals for the club and on 13 July 2011 was transferred to Cesena from Empoli in a temporary deal for €2.2 million.
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Éder is a quick, diminutive, yet tenacious forward with an accurate shot, who usually plays in a central role as a main striker, due to his pace, positional sense, attacking movement, tactical intelligence, and eye for goal, which make him particularly effective during counter-attacks. A versatile, hard-working, and technically gifted player, with good vision, he is also effective as a second striker, as a left winger, or even as an attacking midfielder, positions which allow him to provide depth to his team and participate in build-up plays, play off of his team-mates, hold up the ball, and provide assists. Possessing substantial physical strength, despite his small stature, he can also be effective in the air, as well as from set-pieces and penalties. In addition to his offensive and creative abilities, Éder has also stood out for his stamina and defensive work-rate, which make him extremely useful when his team are not in possession.
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Éder, as a dual citizen of Italy and Brazil, was eligible to play for both nations. He qualified for the Italy national team through his Italian citizenship as well as more than 2-year of residence in Italy; he qualified to Italian citizenship through his Italian great-grandfather Battista Righetto, who came from Nove in Veneto. Éder began to be considered for the Italian national team by head coach Antonio Conte due to his good form in the 2014–15 season with Sampdoria. There was controversy surrounding Antonio Conte’s call-up for Éder and Franco Vázquez, respectively born in Brazil and Argentina. Speaking at a Serie A meeting on 23 March 2015, Inter manager Roberto Mancini stated, “The Italian national team should be Italian. An Italian player deserves to play for the national team while someone who wasn’t born in Italy, even if they have relatives, I don’t think they deserve to.” Conte’s response to the use of overseas-born players was: “If Mauro Camoranesi [who was born in Argentina] was allowed to help Italy win the 2006 World Cup, then why can’t Éder and Franco Vázquez lead the Azzurri to glory in next year’s European Championship?” On 28 March 2015, Éder made his debut for Italy, coming on as a 58th-minute substitute for Simone Zaza in a Euro 2016 qualifier against Bulgaria and scoring the equaliser in a 2–2 draw in the 84th minute. He made his first start three days later against England in a 1–1 draw in Turin, making way for fellow oriundo Vázquez after 61 minutes. On 10 October 2015, Éder opened the scoring in a 3–1 away win over Azerbaijan, which sealed Italy’s qualification for UEFA Euro 2016. On 31 May 2016, he was named to Conte’s 23-man Italy squad for Euro 2016. On 17 June, he scored the only goal against Sweden in the 88th minute during the second group game, which qualified Italy to the Round of 16; he was named Man of the Match by UEFA.
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The 2016 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 or simply Euro 2016, was the 15th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men’s football championship of Europe organised by UEFA. It was held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016. Spain were the two-time defending champions, having won the 2008 and 2012 tournaments, but were eliminated in the round of 16 by Italy. Portugal won the tournament for the first time, following a 1–0 victory after extra time over the host team, France, in the final played at the Stade de France. For the first time, the European Championship final tournament was contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format used since 1996. Under the new format, the finalists contested a group stage consisting of six groups of four teams, followed by a knockout phase including three rounds and the final. Nineteen teams – the top two from each of the nine qualifying groups and the best third-placed team – joined France in the final tournament, who qualified automatically as hosts; a series of two-legged play-off ties between the remaining third-placed teams in November 2015 decided the last four finalist spots. France was chosen as the host nation on 28 May 2010, after a bidding process in which they beat Italy and Turkey for the right to host the 2016 finals. The matches were played in ten stadiums in ten cities: Bordeaux, Lens, Lille Métropole, Décines-Charpieu, Marseille, Nice, Paris, Saint-Denis, Saint-Étienne, and Toulouse. It was the third time that France hosted the finals, after the inaugural tournament in 1960 and the 1984 finals.
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This shirt was worn by Eder during the 2nd leg of the Fifa World Cup “RUSSIA 2018” playoff qualifying game against Italy which took place in Milan, Giuseppe Meazza Stadium on November 13th 2017. Eder was a reserve player during the game that ended 0-0 after Sweden won the first leg 1-0. This game became one of the worst pages of Italy team’s history. For the first time since 1958, Italy didn’t qualify to the FIFA World Cup. Sweden held on to force a goalless draw in the second leg at the San Siro to defeat the Italians 1-0 on aggregate in their Russia 2018 play-off. Despite creating the majority of the chances in the match and dominating in possession, Italy lacked the cutting edge they needed to find a goal, while Sweden goalkeeper Robin Olsen, captain Andreas Granqvist and team mates did enough to help their nation over the line and into their first World Cup since Germany 2006. The crowd at the San Siro of over 70,000 created an intense atmosphere which resulted in a frenetic and tense 90 minutes. Giorgio Chiellini, Andrea Barzagli and Jakob Johansson, goalscorer in the first leg, all picked up early yellow cards, before the latter picked up a nasty-looking injury. Swedish goalkeeper Olsen also made some big saves; the anxiety levels went up to an entirely different level in the second half. As expected, Italy continued to dominate possession but Janne Andersson’s side were able to thwart any attacks Giampiero Ventura’s men attempted. The Azzurri found no solutions to get back into the tie, and will miss out on the world finals for the first time in 60 years. While this game represents one of the worst pages for Italy team’s history, it also represents a memorable page for the Sweden team that was able to qualify for the World Cup and to write an important page for the football’s tale.
