Filippo "Pippo" Inzaghi (Italian pronunciation: [fiˈlippo ˈpippo inˈdzaːɡi]; born 9 August 1973) is an Italian professional football manager and former player who played as a striker. He is the head coach of Serie B club Palermo. Nicknamed "Superpippo" ("Super Goof") or "Alta tensione" ("High Tension") by fans and commentators during his playing career, Inzaghi is regarded as one of the greatest strikers of his generation. In the UEFA Champions League, he is the all-time Italian top goalscorer, scoring 46 goals.
Inzaghi played for several Italian clubs and spent the most notable spells of his club career with Juventus and AC Milan, winning two Champions League titles (2003, 2007), and three Serie A titles (1998, 2004, 2011). He is the seventh highest scorer in Italy, with 313 goals scored in official matches. He is currently the seventh-highest goalscorer in European club competitions with 70 goals, behind only Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski, Raúl, Karim Benzema, and Harry Kane. He is also Milan's top international goalscorer in the club's history with 43 goals. He also holds the record for most hat-tricks in Serie A with 10.
At international level, Inzaghi earned 57 caps for the Italy national team between 1997 and 2007, scoring 25 goals. He represented his country at three FIFA World Cups, winning the 2006 edition, and he also took part in UEFA Euro 2000, where he won a runners-up medal.
His younger brother, Simone Inzaghi, is also a football manager and former Italian international player.
Inzaghi's favourite footballers as a child were Paolo Rossi and Marco van Basten. The elder brother of fellow footballer Simone Inzaghi, he got his start playing for hometown club Piacenza as a teenager in 1991, but made only two league appearances before being loaned to Serie C1 side Leffe, with whom he scored an impressive 13 goals in 21 matches. In 1993, Inzaghi moved to Serie B club Hellas Verona and scored 13 goals in 36 league appearances. Upon his return to Piacenza, he scored 15 times in 37 games helping his team win Serie B and proving himself to be an exciting young prospect.
Inzaghi made his Serie A debut when he transferred to Parma in 1995, but scored only twice in 15 league matches. One of these two goals came against one of his former clubs, Piacenza, literally "making him cry". He added another two goals in European competitions that season. In the following season, he moved on to Atalanta, finishing as the Capocannoniere (Serie A's top scorer) with 24 goals after scoring against every team in the league. He was crowned Serie A Young Footballer of the Year and served as team captain in the last game of the season.
Inzaghi, however, was soon on the move once again to his sixth team in seven seasons, this time to Juventus for a reported 23 billion lire. He formed a formidable attacking partnership along with Alessandro Del Piero and Zinedine Zidane, a tandem which would last for four seasons, under managers Marcello Lippi, and subsequently Carlo Ancelotti, marking Inzaghi's longest stint with one team at the time. During his time with the Bianconeri, he scored two Champions League hat-tricks – against Dynamo Kyiv and Hamburger SV – becoming the first player to do so.
During his first season with the club, Inzaghi scored two goals as Juventus beat Vicenza 3–0 in the 1997 Supercoppa Italiana. Juventus won the Scudetto during the 1997–98 season, in which Inzaghi scored 18 goals, including a decisive, Scudetto-winning hat-trick against Bologna. He also scored six goals to help Juventus reach the Champions League final, although they were defeated 1–0 by Real Madrid.
The 1998–99 season was less successful for Juventus, as they were defeated in the 1998 Supercoppa Italiana by Lazio and finished the season seventh place in Serie A. Inzaghi still managed 20 goals in all competitions, finishing the season as the club's top-scorer; Six of his goals came in the Champions League, as Juventus were eliminated in the semi-finals by eventual champions Manchester United. During the second leg of the semi-finals in Turin, Inzaghi scored two goals in the first ten minutes, but Manchester United eventually managed to come back and win the match 3–2.
Inzaghi helped Juventus win the 1999 UEFA Intertoto Cup, scoring five goals in the semi-finals against Rostov, and two in the finals against Rennes, qualifying Juventus for the UEFA Cup that season. Inzaghi scored 15 goals in Serie A as Juventus narrowly missed out on the title to Lazio, defeated on the final matchday. The following season, Inzaghi managed 11 goals in Serie A as Juventus finished second in the league for the second consecutive season; he also scored five goals in the UEFA Champions League, including a hat-trick in a 4–4 draw against Hamburger SV, although Juventus were eliminated in the first round. With 16 goals in all competitions, he was Juventus's top goalscorer for the third consecutive season. However, his once-effective partnership with Del Piero had become less effective in recent seasons, due to their lack of understanding, individualism, and their strained relationship both on and off the pitch.
Despite scoring a high 89 goals in 165 games for the Bianconeri, Inzaghi was soon benched in favour of David Trezeguet and on 2 July 2001 signed for AC Milan for a reported 70 billion lire, or 45 billion lire cash plus Cristian Zenoni (Sky Sports reported a smaller total figure, £17 million) for the 2001–02 campaign by coach Fatih Terim. Juventus announced that the sale of Inzaghi produced a capital gain of €31.1 million to the club, making the actual transfer fee far exceed that figure. Inzaghi, however, suffered a knee injury and missed the first half of the season. Upon his return, he was able to forge a strong goalscoring partnership with Andriy Shevchenko, and he soon earned many trophies with the Rossoneri under new manager Carlo Ancelotti, among them the 2002–03 Champions League (in which Milan defeated his previous team, Juventus, in the final on penalties), along with the 2002–03 Coppa Italia (scoring in a 2–2 draw in the second leg), the 2003 UEFA Super Cup, the 2004 Supercoppa Italiana, and the 2003–04 Scudetto. In the 2002–03 Champions League campaign, he scored his record third Champions League hat-trick against Deportivo de La Coruña in the Group Stage and a decisive goal in quarter-finals against Ajax, totalling 12 European goals in that season. In November 2004, he signed a contract extension with the club.
Inzaghi fully recovered from the persistent knee injuries that had dogged him for two years and regained his predatory goalscoring form by scoring 12 goals in 22 Serie A matches in 2005–06, along with four goals in five Champions' League appearances; two against Lyon in the quarter-finals and another two against Bayern Munich in the first knockout stage. He scored the decisive goal against the Bavarians in the 2007 quarter-finals, helping Milan to reach the semi-finals of the competition. On 23 May 2007, in the 2007 Champions League final in Athens, he scored both of Milan's goals in their 2–1 victory over Liverpool in a rematch of the 2005 final. He declared after the match:
It's a dream since I was a child to score twice in the final, and the ones I scored yesterday evening were the most important in my life. It was an unforgettable game. It's something that will stay with me all my life and two goals in the final speaks for itself.
At the start of the 2007–08 season, he picked up where he left off in Athens, scoring the equalizer in the Super Cup in Milan's 3–1 victory over Sevilla. Inzaghi capped off the year by scoring two goals in the 2007 FIFA Club World Cup final, helping Milan win 4–2 against Boca Juniors to take revenge for the defeat on penalties in 2003.
On 24 February 2008, Inzaghi scored the match-winning goal in Milan's 2–1 win over Palermo with a diving header after coming into the game from the bench; it marked his first Serie A goal in over a year. This was followed by ten more goals in the league, the last against Udinese. This strike against Udinese was his 100th goal for the club in official games. But despite incredible form, Italy national team manager Roberto Donadoni declined to call him for Euro 2008. In November 2008, Inzaghi agreed to a contract extension with Milan until June 2010.