Vincenzo Cangelosi was born in Palermo, on Oct 12, 1963.
In his youth he was a goalkeeper but mainly a reserve. He had two years at Palermo (1981-83, in B with 0 league appearances), a season at Crotone (1984-85, promoted to C2, 4 league appearances), Foggia (1986-87, C1, 2 league appearances) and Siracusa (1987-88, C2, 2 league appearances).
He then retired at 26. He became Zdeněk Zeman's assistant at Foggia in 1989. He had known Zeman since the age of eleven as the Bohemian had been coaching in the Palermo youth sector.
He remained Zeman's assistant manager for the next thirty years. He lived the fantastic Zemanlandia days at Foggia, the Roman days with Lazio and Roma, then Fenerbahçe, Napoli, Salernitana, Avellino, Lecce, Brescia, Red Star Belgrade, Foggia again, Pescara, Roma again, Cagliari, Lugano, Pescara and finally Foggia again in 2021-22.
There was some success and several failures and sackings but always entertaining football. They achieved two 9th places in Serie A and a promotion at Foggia, a promotion to Serie A at Pescara and a 2nd place in Serie A with Lazio.
They were at Lazio for two and a half seasons with 2nd and 3rd places. There was some great football and some incredible wins (Fiorentina 8-2, Napoli 5-1, Foggia 7-1, Milan 4-0, Inter 4-1, Juventus 4-0, Sampdoria 6-3 and two derby wins just to name a few) but also inconsistency and in their third season, in January, they were replaced.
They then controversially joined Roma but Cangelosi just followed Zeman who wanted a sort of revenge on Lazio.
In 2022 Cangelosi went solo and became head coach at Casertana in Serie D. The "Falchetti" (Little Falcons) finished 3rd and then won the playoff and were promoted to Serie C. The following year the Rossoblu finished 4th in Serie C and lost in the playoffs to Juventus Next Gen 2-3 on aggregate. He then left Caserta.
Cangelosi's career in football so far will certainly be remembered for his thirty-year assistance to iconic Zdeněk Zeman, no doubt quite a journey.
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