Nicola Ventola

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Nicola Ventola
Personal information
Full name Nicola Ventola
Date of birth May 24, 1978 (age 28)
Place of birth    Grumo Appula, Italy
Height 1.85 m
Playing position Striker
Club information
Current club Atalanta
Number 10
Youth clubs
Bari
Senior clubs1
Years Club App (Gls)*
1994-1998
1998-1999
1999-2000
2000-2001
2001-2003
2003-2004
2004-2005
2005-
Bari
Inter Milan
Bologna (loan)
Atalanta (loan)
Inter Milan
Siena (loan)
Crystal Palace (loan)
Atalanta
45 (2)
21 (6)
14 (0)
28 (10)
16 (4)
28 (4)
3 (1)
35 (15)   
National team
 ?-2000 Italy U-21 / Olympic

1 Senior club appearances and goals
counted for the domestic league only and
correct as of June 2006.
* Appearances (Goals)

Nicola Ventola (born May 24, 1978 in Grumo Appula, Bari) is an Italian footballer and is a striker, who was a member of the Italian squad at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Nicola Ventola's career began with Bari in 1994 as a youth player. Signing for Internazionale in 1998 he was showing real star potential, including scoring against eventual European Cup winners Manchester United. However, exactly a year later he was loaned out to Bologna (after Christian Vieri's £32 million transfer to Inter from Lazio) and later Atalanta. Ventola returned to Inter in 2001 but, suffering from injuries, was not picked regularly for the first team, going on loan once again to Siena in 2003. Crystal Palace signed him on transfer deadline day in August 2004 on a season-long loan but this was wrecked by injury and he only made a handful of appearances. He did score against Southampton on the penultimate day of the season, which would have been enough to see Palace stay up had they not conceded in injury time. In July 2005 Ventola signed a two year contract with Atalanta B.C..

He has represented Italy in the under-21s team.

Ventola has a son, Kelian (b. 9/22/03) with Brazilian model Kartika Luyet.


Atalanta B.C. - Current Squad

2 Talamonti | 3 Adriano | 5 Donati | 6 Bellini | 7 Bombardini | 8 Bernardini | 9 Zampagna | 10 Ventola | 11 Cisse | 15 Loria | 16 Rivalta | 17 Vieri | 18 Ivan | 19 Ariatti | 20 Manzoni | 21 Tissone | 22 Centi | 23 Abeijon | 25 Conteh | 26 Migliaccio | 27 Calderoni | 34 Defendi | 72 Doni | 79 Ferreira Pinto | 80 Carrozzieri | 99 Soncin