Armando Pantanelli

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Personal information
Armando Pantanelli
Full name	Armando Pantanelli
Date of birth	June 1, 1971 (1971-06-01) (age 37)
Place of birth	Turin, Italy
Height	1.84 m (6 ft +¹⁄₂ in)
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Club information
Current club	Avellino
Number	31
Youth clubs
1986–1989	Reggiana
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1989–1990 1992–1994 1994–1996 1996–1997 1997–1999 1997 1999 1999–2001 2001–2004 2004–2007 2007–	Reggiana Olbia Carpi Inter Reggiana → Fidelis Andria (loan) Perugia Cosenza Cagliari Catania Avellino	000 (0) 035 (0) 064 (0) 000 (0) 025 (0) 027 (0) 000 (0) 060 (0) 117 (0) 116 (0) 0015 (0)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Armando Pantanelli (born June 1, 1971) is an Italian professional football goalkeeper. He is currently with the Serie B club U.S. Avellino.

He began his career with A.C. Reggiana, and from 1992 to 2006, he played for several other clubs, appearing in over 400 matches in Serie C2, C1, and B, before making his Serie A debut in the 2006-07 season after Calcio Catania earned promotion to the premier division. After a feud with the club he moved to U.S. Avellino in the summer of 2007.

Pantanelli is famous for his mane of hair kept out of his eyes with a baseball cap rather than the conventional headband. He has captained Catania on a number of occasions. He is also well respected for his remarkable reflex saves, including a few penalty saves. He is, however, also known to have made some high profile blunders. Pantanelli has been compared to another Italian goalkeeper, Marco Storari, for a similar style of goalkeeping, as well as hairstyle.

[edit] Controversy

At the end of the 2006–2007 season Pantanelli was involved in a feud with Catania, accusing the club of bullying him into quitting the club by excluding him from training sessions and keeping him and two other players at a separate hotel at away games.^[1] In September of 2007 he was allegedly implicated in a betting scandal. An inquest has been opened into betting involving Pantanelli, according to newspaper ‘La Sicilia’. It is alleged that he placed bets on two games that ended with a negative result for Catania, supposedly due to mistakes made by Pantanelli.^[2]