Marco Ballotta (born 3 April 1964) is an Italian football goalkeeper, currently playing for S.S. Lazio of Serie A.

Career

He started his career with his native club Bologna but never made a first team appearance. In 1984, he was moved to Modena F.C. where he played for 6 years.

In January 1991 he was transferred to Cesena, but only stayed for 6 months when he was purchased by Parma A.C.. It was with Parma that he enjoyed his best season (92/93) as he helped the club to win the Cup Winners' Cup http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ECWC/news/Kind=8192/newsId=3445.html and finish third in Serie A.

However 93/94 was a less enjoyable season for Bollotta as he only made 3 Serie A appearances, although one of those was in the side which triumphed in the European Super Cup http://www.footballsite.co.uk/Statistics/European/SuperCup/SuperCup1993-94.htm. But he was a mere spectator sat on the bench for the 1994 Cup Winners' Cup final.http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ECWC/news/Kind=8192/newsId=3436.html

In the following summer he moved again, this time to Serie A team Brescia, but he was unable to prevent the sides relegation in his only season with the club. He played Serie B football the next season, but not for Brescia. Instead he successfully achieved promotion to Serie A with Reggina Calcio in 1996.

Unfortunately their stay in Italy's top flight was brief. and Marco transferred to the 7th club of his career, S.S. Lazio as the club's third choice goalkeeper. Following this in 2000/01 he enjoyed a brief stint with Inter Milan, before returning to Modena F.C. to help the club promote to Serie A in 2002. He was among the players to keep them there until their eventual relegation in 2004.

At this stage Ballotta almost retired from professional football to become a coach, but during the 2005-06 season following injuries sustained by Angelo Peruzzi and Matteo Sereni he made eight appearances for Lazio. In doing this he broke the record for the oldest player to make a Series A appearance record previous hold by the legendary Dino Zoff for more than 20 years. His final game in the 2005/2006 was at the age of 42 years and 34 days on 7 May 2006 for Lazio against Ascoli. Recently, Ballotta announced he will play for Lazio even in the 2006/2007 season http://www.calciomercato.biz/sportal/immagini/news/news855756.html.

Ballotta was never selected to play for the Italian national side.

References