.jpg) Sbardella in 1969 | |||
| Born | (1925-10-17)17 October 1925 Palestrina,Kingdom of Italy | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Died | 14 January 2002(2002-01-14) (aged 76) Rome,Italy | ||
| Domestic | |||
| Years | League | Role | |
| –1971 | Serie A | Referee | |
| International | |||
| Years | League | Role | |
| 1964–1971 | FIFA listed | Referee | |
Antonio Sbardella (17 October 1925 – 14 January 2002) was an Italianfootball player,referee and sports official. He is best known for refereeing at the1970 FIFA World Cup.[1]
Born inPalestrina nearRome, Sbardella first got involved in football playing as agoalkeeper at youth levels of the local powerhouseLazio. However Sbardella never appeared in theSerie A as he failed to rise through the ranks at Lazio, and he eventually finished his playing career at Artiglio, a small Rome-basedSerie C club.
He then took up refereeing, and in his domestic career he officiated a total of 167 Serie A matches.[2] Along withConcetto Lo Bello he was considered one of the top two Italian referees of the 1960s and 1970s.[3]
The pinnacle of his career came at the1970 FIFA World Cup inMexico, in which he refereed two matches, including the third place play-off betweenWest Germany andUruguay. Sbardella had been designated to referee the final, but was eventually replaced by East Germany'sRudi Glöckner because Italy national football team had reachedthe final.[3]
In club football his highlights include officiating twoCoppa Italia finals (the 1963 final betweenAtalanta andTorino and the 1966 final betweenCatanzaro andFiorentina), and the second leg of the1967 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final betweenLeeds United andDinamo Zagreb.[4]
After retiring from refereeing, Sbardella became a Sport Manager. He managed atLazio,Roma andTriestina football clubs in the 1970s and 1980s. The greatest satisfactions came from the period spent atLazio, when together with Tommaso Maestrelli, he managed to build an unrepeatable superb team with many unruly talents, who kept at bay but gave to the club of president Lenzini the Italian championship of 1974.
