Sebastian Giovinco

Sebastian Giovinco (born 26 January 1987) is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a forward.

A quick and creative player on the ball, Giovinco was a versatile attacker capable of playing in multiple offensive positions but mainly operating behind a lone striker as a trequartista.

He grew up in Beinasco, a comune southwest of the city, in a family of Milan fans, and joined the Juventus youth system in 1996, when he was nine.

His younger brother Giuseppe was also part of the Juventus Youth Academy and currently plays in Serie C.

After joining the Juventus youth system, Giovinco flourished through the ranks of the club and impressed especially during the 2005–06 season, winning the Campionato Nazionale Primavera, as well as the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Primavera, and also reaching the final at the Viareggio Tournament, where he was named best player of the competition.

Giovinco began his professional career with Italian club Juventus in Serie B in 2006, and soon spent loan spells with Italian clubs Empoli and Parma.

Giovinco was promoted to the first team during the 2006–07 season and also played his last season in the Primavera squad.

His professional debut came on 12 May 2007, in the Serie B match against Bologna; he came on as a substitute in place of Raffaele Palladino, and marked his first appearance with an assist for David Trezeguet's tap-in.

Since then, he had been tipped to be Alessandro Del Piero's heir in the creative number 10 role behind the main striker, known as the trequartista, rifinitore, or fantasista, in Italian.

Juventus won the Serie B title that season, earning promotion to Serie A the following season.

On 4 July 2007, Giovinco was loaned out to Empoli.

He made his Serie A debut on 26 August, coming on as a substitute against Fiorentina.

Giovinco scored his first Serie A goal on 30 September against Palermo in a 3–1 win.

He made his European debut in the UEFA Cup on 4 October against Zürich.

Giovinco finished his first season in Serie A with 6 goals in 35 appearances, and was given the Leone d’Argento award, by the club.

Despite Giovinco's promising performances, Empoli were unable to avoid relegation, and he returned to Juventus at the end of the season.

On 26 June 2008, Giovinco officially returned to Juventus.

Giovinco played his first Serie A match for Juventus on 24 September, against Catania, before assisting both goals for Vincenzo Iaquinta in the 2–2 draw with BATE Borisov in the Champions League on 30 September, his first start for the club.

On 7 December, he scored his first goal for Juventus, a free kick against Lecce in a 2–1 win.

In October 2008, he signed a contract extension, tying him to Juventus until the summer of 2013.

Despite a promising start, Giovinco did not play regularly and made sporadic appearances throughout the season, both in the starting eleven and off the bench, as he struggled to fit into Claudio Ranieri's preferred 4–4–2 formation, and was often used out of position on the left wing.

However, he did earn praise in the media for the Man of the match performance that he produced when he was started in Juventus's home fixture in Serie A against Bologna on 14 March 2009, in which he first set-up a goal from a corner and later scored another from a half-volley to help Juventus come from behind to win the match 4–1.

He eventually finished the season with 3 goals in 27 appearances in all competitions, 2 of which came from 19 Serie A appearances.

The following season, when the club's new manager, Ciro Ferrara, was forced into a tactical switch due to injuries to first choice midfielders, Mauro Camoranesi and Claudio Marchisio, Giovinco was variously inserted into the starting line-up; he helped Juventus to a 5–1 defeat of Sampdoria in only his fourth start of the season.

Under the following manager, Alberto Zaccheroni, he was hardly featured.

In April, he sustained a training ground injury and was ruled out for the rest of the season after undergoing tests.

On 5 August 2010, Parma announced the signing of Giovinco on loan from Juventus, with an option to buy half of the player's transfer rights at the end of the season.

He made his Parma debut against Brescia in a 2–0 win on 29 August.

He scored his first goal for Parma on 12 September 2010, a free kick in a 2–1 loss to Catania.

An impressive start to the season earned Giovinco a call up to represent the Italy national team.

At international level, Giovinco made his debut with the Italy senior side in 2011, and collected over 20 caps; he also took part at UEFA Euro 2012, where his side finished as runners-up, and at the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, where he won a bronze medal and scored his only international goal.

Giovinco was born in Turin to a Sicilian father, Giovanni, originally from Bisacquino in the province of Palermo, and a Calabrian mother, Elvira, originally from Catanzaro, who moved from Southern Italy.

On 6 January 2011, Giovinco scored two goals for Parma in a 4–1 win against his parent club, Juventus.

After initially struggling to settle-in at Parma, he refound his form towards the end of the season and made his break-through with the club, finishing his first season at the club with 7 goals in 30 appearances in the league.

He signed for Toronto FC in 2015, a deal which made him the league's highest paid player.

Across his four seasons with the club, he won three Canadian Championships as well as a historic domestic treble in 2017, which included the team's maiden MLS Cup and Supporters' Shield titles.

Individually, Giovinco also won the MLS Golden Boot, the MLS Newcomer of the Year Award, the MLS MVP Award, the George Gross Memorial Trophy for the most valuable player of the Canadian Championship, and the CONCACAF Champions League Golden Ball in 2018, a tournament in which Toronto finished as runners-up.

Giovinco left Toronto FC in 2019 as the club's all-time top goalscorer.

Giovinco would join Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal, where he won the AFC Champions League in his first year with the team and the Saudi Pro League and King Cup in his second season.

He then returned to Italy for a brief stint with Sampdoria in 2022.