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Writer's pictureSimon Basten

Ciro Immobile

Updated: Oct 13

Numbers talk:

  • Player who has scored most goals for Lazio in all official competitions

  • Player who has scored most goals for Lazio in Serie A

  • Player who has scored most goals for Lazio in UEFA Cup/Europa League

  • Player who has scored most goals for Lazio in UEFA competitions

  • Lazio player, along with Beppe Signori, who has been Serie A top scorer most times

  • One of three players to have won the trophy for top Serie A scorer with two different teams (the others being Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Luca Toni)

  • Player, together with Gonzalo Higuain, to have scored most goals in a season in Serie A

  • First Italian Serie A player to have scored at least 25 league goals three times. The other two were foreigners Gunnar Nordhal and Istvan Nyers

  • Player in activity with most goals scored in Serie A


We could stop here, but there is a bio to write.


Ciro Immobile was born in Torre Annunziata near Naples on February 20 1990. He started his career in the youth teams of Salernitana but he did not stand out. He then moved to play for Sorrento and scored 30 goals in the Allievi (14-16 year olds). Juventus set their eyes on him and at 17 he joined the Bianconeri. Juve won the prestigious Viareggio Tournament in 2009 thanks to an Immobile double in the final. He debuted in Serie A on March 14 2009 coming on for Alessandro Del Piero in injury time towards the end of Juventus Bologna 4-1. Later on in the year, in November, he also debuted in the Champions League against Bordeaux. He would end up with four appearances that season in all competitions.

 

In July 2010 he signed for Siena in Serie B on loan but he did not play much so in January he moved to Grosseto where he played a little more but only scored one goal. The big life changer for Ciro took place in the summer of 2011 when he signed for Pescara, again on loan. Together with future greats Marco Verratti and Lorenzo Insigne, and under the guidance of Zdenek Zeman, they took Pescara back to Serie A and won the championship. Immobile was Serie B top scorer with 28 goals.

 

In the summer of 2012 Genoa bought half of Immobile and Ciro moved to Liguria. Not a good season for him: 34 league appearances but only 5 goals. At the end of the campionato, Juventus re-acquired the other half and sold it to Torino. Together with his attacking partner Alessio Cerci and under the guidance of Gian Piero Ventura, Torino reached a Europa League qualification and Immobile scored 22 goals, top Serie A scorer.

 

Torino purchased the other half of Immobile and sold him to Borussia Dortmund. He played 34 games with 10 goals (4 in Champions League) in a difficult season for the Germans. He also had a few problems getting used to the new way of life. In the summer of 2015 he was loaned to Sevilla but in six months he played just 15 games (four goals) and had problems with the manager. For the remaining part of the season he was loaned back to Torino but did not leave a significant mark.

 

In July 2016 he signed for Lazio. On a personal note, I had wanted this to happen since Ciro’s Pescara days. He may not be pretty to watch but he has the gift of often being in the right place at the right time and scores goals. He just had to find the right kind of environment and club which could allow him to express himself at his best. Lazio was the right club and Ciro Immobile became King. With the Biancocelesti he won a Coppa Italia (2018-19) and two Super Coppas (2017 and 2019), scoring with amazing consistency. Ciro scored in every possible way: headers, volleys, shots from outside the box, left or right foot. There were only a couple of years in which he did not score more than 20 goals and that was due to injuries. In 2020 Immobile won the Golden Boot, an award given each season to the leading goal scorer in league matches from the top divisions of the European national leagues.


Official SS Lazio photo

In the last couple of seasons his striking rate decreased. He missed a lot of games in 2022-23 due to injury and struggled in 2023-24 to find form and consistency. But one has to point out that in the last season the Biancocelesti had a hard time creating chances and this did not help.

 

In July 2024 he received a good offer from Beşiktaş and, after speaking with the club, decided to accept. He left Lazio after eight years in the same year that Luis Alberto and Felipe Anderson also left, a year after Sergej Milinkovic-Savic decided to go to Saudi Arabia. The end of an era at Lazio.

 

Immobile has also been very useful for the Nazionale though he has not scored as much. But, as most Lazio fans know, the whole game must revolve around Ciro for him to be effective. Even Maurizio Sarri re-adapted his tactics to exploit this goal-scoring machine. This has never happened in Nazionale. Despite this, Ciro has scored 15 goals for Italy and won a European Championship. He is also the media’s favourite scapegoat for whenever something goes wrong, just like Giorgio Chinaglia was back in the 1970s. He has 57 caps with Italy and 17 goals.

 

For Lazio fans he will always be our captain, our champion and our King and will stay in our hearts forever.


Lazio Career

Season

Total games (Goals)

Serie A

Coppa Italia

Champions League

Europa League

Conference League

Super Coppa

2016-17

41 (26)

36 (23)

5 (3)

-

-

-

2017-18

47 (41)

33 (29)

4 (2)

-

9 (8)

1 (2)

2018-19

46 (19)

36 (15)

5 (3)

-

5 (1)

-

2019-20

44 (39)

37 (36)

2 (1)

-

4 (2)

1

2020-21

41 (25)

35 (20)

1

5 (5)

-

-

2021-22

40 (32)

31 (27)

2 (1)

-

7 (4)

-

2022-23

38 (14)

31 (12)

1

-

4 (1)

2 (1)

-

2023-24

43 (11)

31 (7)

3

8 (4)

-

-

1

Total

340 (207)

270 (169)

23 (10)

13 (9)

29 (16)

2 (1)

3 (2)

Sources


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