Personal life Del Piero

Del Piero is married to Sonia Amoruso, the two have been together since 1999 and married in 2005. The couple announced in July 2007 that they are expecting their first baby. On October 22, 2007, Amoruso gave birth to baby boy Tobias Del Piero at 0:20 at Sant'Anna hospital in Turin.

Del Piero has used his fame and money to promote and support cancer research; in recognition of this he has received from the Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro a prize of "Believe in Research" during November 2006.

When the Olympic Flame for the 2006 Winter Olympics passed through Turin, Del Piero was a torchbearer. He has an interest in sports outside of football and in turn has gained fans outside of just football, sport icons such as NBA star Steve Nash and cycling legend Eddy Merckx have stated that they are fans of Del Piero.

As well as an interest in other sports, Del Piero also has a keen interest in music. He has even recorded some albums of his own. Del Piero is an Oasis fan and is a friend of Noel Gallagher and appeared in the video for the group's single Lord Don't Slow Me Down; Del Piero claimed Gallagher was Italy's lucky mascot in their 2006 World Cup success and invited him to the final and the team hotel after victory. Along with Marco Materazzi, Del Piero appeared on stage at a Rolling Stones show in Milan shortly after Italy's World Cup win.

International career

Despite huge success on the club level, he has been somewhat disappointing playing for Italy, although he is currently the team's fourth all-time leading scorer. His tournament debut was Euro 96, but made his only appearance in the first half of a match against Russia before being substituted at halftime. Del Piero competed with fan favorite Baggio for a spot on the 1998 FIFA World Cup final roster while struggling to recover from injury suffered during the 1998 Champions League final with Juventus. He also missed two chances in Italy's 2-1 loss to France in the Euro 2000 final.

He returned to the international scene in the 2002 FIFA World Cup on the back of an impressive season in Serie A, in which he led Juventus to the Scudetto. Del Piero scored the decisive goal against Hungary, which sealed the Azzurri's qualification for the finals. He instantly scored against Mexico after coming on as a substitute to send Italy through to the second round, where they were eliminated. After Euro 2004, Marcello Lippi was replaced by Fabio Capello as Juventus coach. Capello was not convinced of Del Piero's abilities and frequently benched him in favor of new signing Zlatan Ibrahimović, but Del Piero still managed to score 14 goals as Juventus won their 28th league title.

Del Piero began the 2006 World Cup on the bench, appearing in two out of three group stage matches, and made his first start of the competition in a 1-0 round-of-16 win over Australia on June 26. On July 4, Del Piero entered as a substitute near the end of regulation and scored Italy's second goal in a 2-0 semifinal win over host Germany. The final whistle blew 8 seconds after he scored. In the final against France, which ended 1-1 after extra time, Del Piero scored a penalty in the shootout as Italy won the tournament for the fourth time. He admitted afterwards that winning the World Cup was his childhood dream.

As of 2006, Del Piero has captained Italy five times (including the world cup in 2006) . He also regularly wore the number 10, but later gave it to Francesco Totti and switched to the number 7, as it was the first number he wore at the start of his career. Even though the number 10 was vacated after Totti retired from the national team in July 2007, Del Piero denied any interest in taking back the number, saying he was satisfied with the number 7.

Del Piero was called up to Italy's squad for the UEFA Euro 2008 Championship in Austria and Switzerland. Italy qualified through the group stage in second-place behind Holland, eliminating Romania and France. In the quarter-final against Spain, Del Piero made a substitute appearance during extra-time, and with the game ending in a 0-0 draw, it was decided by a penalty shootout. Spain won 4-2.