Giuseppe Mascara Italian Footballer From Caltagirone

Early life

Giuseppe Mascara was born on 22 August 1979 in Caltagirone, Sicily. He is Italian and stands 172 centimetres tall. He began in youth football with the Sicilian amateur club Comiso before moving to nearby Ragusa, where he started his senior career in 1995. Over two seasons there he scored five goals in 29 appearances.

Career

In 1997 Mascara moved to the Italian mainland to join Battipagliese, then a Serie C1 side in Campania. He stayed until June 2000 and scored 67 goals in just under 50 games, a record that led to a transfer to Avellino. At Avellino he scored 16 goals in 29 games during a single season, and in 2001 he made a brief appearance for Salernitana, scoring in his only match, before returning to Sicily and signing for Palermo in January 2001. In Serie B he scored eight league goals in 38 appearances for Palermo, and he spent time on loan at Genoa, where he scored twice in 13 league starts.

In July 2003 he joined Catania, the club most closely associated with his career. In his first season he started regularly in Serie B, with 13 goals in 41 league appearances. He spent the 2004-05 season on loan at Perugia, making 37 league appearances and scoring four goals, and he came back to Catania for 2005-06, when the team finished second and won promotion to Serie A. He scored 14 goals that year. In the first Serie A season he formed an attacking partnership with Gionatha Spinesi, and Catania finished 13th.

His best Serie A return came in 2008-09, when he scored 12 league goals in 34 appearances, 15 counting the Coppa Italia. On 1 March 2009 he scored against Palermo in the Sicilian derby from about 55 metres with a volley, in a match that Catania won 4-0 away. The goal was nominated for goal of the season in Serie A. He played more than 150 matches for the club and captained it.

On 6 June 2009 he received his first call-up to the Italy national team for a friendly against Northern Ireland, playing the whole first half. He was the first Catania player to appear for Italy.

Mascara left Catania in January 2011 and signed for Napoli. He made his debut on 6 February 2011 against Cesena as a substitute, made his European debut against Villarreal in the UEFA Europa League and scored his first goal for Napoli on 10 April 2011. In 2012 he moved to Novara and then spent a year in the United Arab Emirates. He returned to Italy with Pescara in 2013 and was released after one season. In 2014 he joined the amateur club Siracusa and won the Eccellenza Sicily league in 2015. He retired in 2016.

Public roles

After retiring, Mascara became a coach. He first led the Catania Under-15 youth side and was then named head coach of Giarre in October 2017. Later roles included Sancataldese (2018), Biancavilla (2019), Troina (2020) and Siracusa (from September 2021 until October 2022). In February 2024 he briefly led Real Aci in the Promozione division. In July 2024 he was announced as manager of the Novara Under-19 side, and on 1 April 2025 he took charge of the first team after the dismissal of Giacomo Gattuso.