Riccardo Scimeca - Defender Date of Birth: June 13, 1975 Birthplace: Leamington Spa Nationality: English Height: 1.85m / 6'1" Previous Clubs: None Joined Villa: Trainee Acquisition Price: Trainee Debut: August 19, 1995 (Man. Utd. (h)) Left Villa (for): July 22, 1999 (Nottingham Forest) Transfer fee: £3 million

Like Gareth Farrely, Scimeca was a graduate of Aston Villa's youth academy. He showed massive amounts of talent, and he was considered the best youth player up to when he made it to the first team at the start of the 95-96 season. He debuted for the first team in the very first match of the season - Villa's 3-1 pounding of Manchester United, where he came on for Dwight Yorke with 3 minutes to go. Since then, he was on and off the bench, appearing 14 times for Aston Villa in the 95-96 season, and benched for an additional 8 times. He was also the captain of the England U-21 team.

However, Riccardo didn't feel that he progressed fast enough at Aston Villa, and requested a transfer in July 1999. Nottingham Forest were the winners, securing Scimeca for £3 million.

Apperances has substitutions in brackets, i.e. the games when he came on as a sub and didn't start on the pitch. All the stats include cup games.

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