Federico Macheda

Federico Macheda is a forward currently playing for Cardiff City.

Federico Macheda
Full Name	Federico macheda
Date of Birth	22 August 1991
Age	33 years
Place of Birth	Rome, Italy
Position	Centre forward
Nationality	Italian
Current club	Cardiff City
Previous club/s	Lazio; Manchester United

Youth career

Federico joined Manchester United in September 2007. By February 2008, still aged just 16, he made the step up to Reserves football. He finished his first season as the top scorer in the Academy and continued his fine form into the 2008/09 campaign. Following a hat-trick for the Reserves side away to Newcastle United at the end of March 2009, Federico was named on the bench for the first team aged 17, against Aston Villa a week later in April. He was called upon from the bench and famously scored a brilliant winning goal in injury time to help Manchester United on the way to the title. A second goal, against Sunderland, would come before the season was over.

Following his burst onto the scene, the 2009/10 season was stop-start with the odd first team appearance and the first and second in a long list of niggling injuries. He still had a strong goalscoring record for the Reserves and did well on the 2010 pre-season tour and he was rewarded with more first team appearances in the opening few months of the 2010/11 season before joining Sampdoria on loan in January 2011. The loan proved unsuccessful, Sampdoria changed their coach and the side, already low on confidence, got relegated. The 2011/12 season followed a similar pattern to the one before, with a few first team appearances before a loan at Queens Park Rangers was cut short due to an ankle injury. As if a pattern was now emerging, 2012/13 saw Federico again have a poor loan during the second half of the season, this time at VfB Stuttgart, where he failed to score.

Federico started the 2013/14 season with the Manchester United Under-21 side but joined Doncaster Rovers on loan in September for three months. He scored 3 goals in 15 appearances for them but picked up a hamstring injury midway through the loan. In January 2014 he joined Birmingham City on loan for the remainder of the season and finished up as their top goalscorer with 10 league goals, helping them to avoid relegation. He was not offered a new contract at the end of the 2013/14 season and joined Cardiff City on a free transfer.

International

Federico has represented Italy at Under-16, Under-17, Under-19 and Under-21 levels.

Career statistics

Club	Season	Under-21				Total
		Starts	Subs	Goals	Assists	Starts	Subs	Goals	Assists
Manchester United	2013-14	2	0	0	0	2	0	0	0
Career total		2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Career honours

Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year: 2008/09