By Phil Tooley

This article was in the Crewe programme, the day Nicky made an excellent debut, contributing hugely to The Spireites victory.

It's not everyday a team like Chesterfield signs someone who's scored the winning goal in an International match against Brazil. In loan signing Nicky Rizzo, who looks set to make his debut against Crewe this afternoon, The Spireites have done just that.

March 24^th 1998 at the Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide, Australia's U23 side took on Brazil U23 and triumphed 3-2, the Olyroos, as that side is known as, scoring their third goal from the spot, Rizzo was the successful penalty kicker. It was one of three games against Brazil as the Australians began their preparation for their own Olympics in 2000 in earnest, all three games were won by Australia, 2-1 in Sydney and 2-1 in Perth were the other two victories.

Rizzo and the Olyroos squad had a couple of warm up games in England in 1999, they beat Southampton 4-1 at The Dell and drew 1-1 with Kuwait at Borehamwood's ground in London.

In early 2000 they played Nigeria (W1-0), Egypt (W1-0), South Korea (L0-3) - Korea included Ji Sun Park (now Man United) and Reading's Seol Ki Hyeon, they then beat Kuwait 3-0 in a behind closed doors match before seeing off South Africa (1-0) in the final warm up game.

In the showpiece itself, Australia lost all three group games and failed to progress in their home Olympic games. Nicky was a late sub for his good friend Vince Grella in front of 93252 fans against Italy, who won 1-0. The game included the likes of Stan Lazaridis, Lucas Neill, Brett Emerton and Mark Viduka for the home side whilst Gattuso, Zanetti, Pirlo and Zambrotta did their stuff for the Azzuri.

Sub again in a 3-2 loss to 10 man Nigeria (Babayaro sent off) and no appearance in the final loss against Honduras.

Before all of that, Nicky had played in an age group World Cup Finals tournament and won a full cap for the Socceroos.

Australia qualified for the 1995 U17 World Cup and Nicky was a regular in the Joeys. Fiji, Vanatu and New Zealand were seen off in the qualifiers, Harry Kewell was Rizzo's most noteworthy team-mate and in the finals, in Ecuador, a 2-2 draw with Spain, a 2-0 loss against Yobo and George's Nigeria followed but a 3-0 triumph over Qatar was enough for them to make the last eight but Brazil saw them off, 3-1 the score.

His only full cap came when he was a young player at Liverpool, Terry Venables named him as sub for the trip to play a powerful Croatia side (Tudor, Prosinecki, Jarni, Stimac, Suker, Boban, Maric) in Zagreb. The Socceroos included Muscat, Popovic, Emerton, Viduka and Aloisi but by the time Rizzo appeared as a 64^th minute sub for Fausto de Amicos, they were 5-0 down and they ended up on the wrong side of a 7-0 hammering. The date was D-Day, 6^th June, 1998, three days before Nicky's 19^th birthday and just before the 1998 World Cup. "They were absolutely flying," remembers Rizzo, "It was a good experience for me, a young kid playing against great players, an experience. I'd like to have made a few more appearances for the full team but certain things happen in your career and you left behind but there's still time."

As a youngster, Rizzo was a Sydney Olympic player and whilst there his agent sent over a couple of tapes to the then Liverpool Manager Roy Evans who invited him for a trial. "I was there for a week and at the end of it ended up signing a two year contract," remembers the left winger, who added, "I was on the bench for Premier League games six or seven times, but didn't actually come on."

"After two years I moved to Crystal Palace with Terry Venables after he'd convinced me to go there and I stayed there for two years, they then went into administration and I then had to make a decision whether to stay in England or go to Italy, which I fancied and they made me a pretty good offer as well, so I went there."

At Palace, he made his debut at home to Port Vale as a half time sub for David Amsalem, an Israeli that the Eagles paid £800,000 for, he made just 7 starts and was no doubt one of the signings that contributed to the Club's financial failings. Vale won the game 1-0 despite having the likes of Lombardo, Hreidarsson, Mullins, Marcus Bent and Matt Jansen in the side.

Two years at Palace saw 17 starts, 24 sub appearances and 3 goals before the lure of Serie B Umbrian side Ternana proved attractive enough where Vince Grella was also on the books, "We'd grown up together and were virtually the same age and great friends, I still speak to him very regularly."

A short spell with Ancona and then with Serie C side AC Prato also came along in Italy. "The lifestyle was pretty good but I had a lot of injury problems at the time so professionally it was a frustrating time for me but Italy's a beautiful Country and Umbria, right next to Perugia, is wonderful then on to Tuscany which is beautiful too. Both my parents are Italian and I grew up speaking Italian as an Australian immigrant family but I was born in Australia but have an Italian passport but I consider myself to be Australian."

Back to England in 2004 with Milton Keynes Dons, a faster pace but he was happy enough, "I found it OK, I'm quite a sharp player, it was quicker in Italy than most people think in Serie B and C, and it's very physical too, so I didn't have problems adapting, League One is a good level."

Thirty five starts, 25 appearances as sub and 5 goals for MK Dons before a loan spell at Grimsby in January before his switch to Saltergate.

An early injury this season meant that Rizzo missed out at the start of the campaign at MK Dons and their subsequent success has been his personal downfall, "I was Martin Allen's first choice winger at the start of the season but I suffered a quad injury and was out for a few weeks and in that time he signed another left winger who's done well and he's played just about every game since and it's hard to break back into a winning side. This opportunity to come to Chesterfield's come up and I'm hoping that I can do well in the next six games."

Nicky missed the 1-0 defeat at Yeovil Town a fortnight ago after falling ill overnight, but the left winger was able to watch his new colleagues from the stand and he was reasonably impressed.

"The result didn't match the performance at all," he said, adding, "The boys did really well, we outplayed Yeovil and we didn't deserve the goal we copped at the end, it was a shot that came off his shin and spun in, the sort of bad luck you get when you're down at the bottom. We deserved at least a point."

"The break gave me and Paul Boertien a chance to blend in with the boys, get to know each other and really go for it in the last few games. We're playing all of the teams around us but I see no reason that of we perform like we did at Yeovil that we'll not save ourselves."