Del Fabro, Dario

2014-2015 (Leeds Player Details)(Player Details)

Central Defender

Born: Alghero, Italy: 24-03-1995

Debut: Sunderland (a): 04-01-2015

Height & Weight: 6ft 11st 11lb

Born in Alghero on the North West Coast of Sardinia, he started his football career with the island's only footbal club, Cagliari, where he joined as a Junior in 2011 at the age of sixteen. He was picked for the Italian under-sixteen team, making his debut in the 2010-11 season, on 12th October 2010, and going on to play seven times. He also made his debut for the Cagliari Primavera side in a 3-0 home win over Portogruaro Berretti on 26th March 2011, when he came on for Federico Bonu in the eighty-fifth minute, for his only appearance of the season. He started to establish himself in the Cagliari Primavera team towards the end of the 2011-12 season, when, on 10th December 2011 he came on at half-time as a substitute for Enrico Frau in a 0-4 home defeat by AC Florenz Primavera and after making his full debut when he started in the following game in a 1-2 defeat at Sampdoria Primavera on 14th January 2012 he played the full ninety minutes in the next six fixtures and by the end of the season had started eight and come on as a substitute in two more. At International level he was also called up for the Under-Seventeen squad, making his debut as a forty-first minute substitute for Aniello Cratella in a 1-4 defeat by Spain on 25th January 2012. He started and played the full eighty minutes in home games against Germany in a 0-1 defeat on 21st February 2012 and a 0-5 defeat two days later and in France he was on the bench for the two preliminary qualifiers on 24th March 2012, when France won 1-0, and two days later when they drew 0-0 with Sweden, but three days later he played one minute in time added at the end of a 2-1 win over Switzerland when he replaced Gennaro Tutino. He then twice played ninety minutes in games against the Czech Republic on 15th May 2012 which was lost 0-2 and then two days later in a 1-1 draw for four starts, two from the bench and two games an unused substitute. The 2012-13 season saw him not only cement his place in the Primavera in which he made sixteen starts to bring him up to twenty-four starts and two from the bench, but he also scored his first goal as he made the score 2-4 in the fifty-fourth minute of the away game with Parma Primavera on 29th September 2012 in which they were defeated 4-5. He also was called up to the Serie A squad, being unused on the bench firstly on 7th October 2012 at Torino and on four further occasions before, on 21st December he came on as a sixty-seventh minute substitute for Marco Sau in the 1-3 home defeat by Juventus. He made his run on debut in the next match on 5th January 2013 in a 1-2 away loss at SS Lazio in which he played the full game. He then sat on the bench for the next five games, but was unused. Closer the end of the season, in May he was twice an unused substitute, before coming on as a substitute for Nicola Murru eight minutes into the second half of the 1-1 draw at Juventus on 11th May 2013 and by the end of the season he had started once and come on as a substitute twice in Serie A and been unused on the bench twelve times. Before his debut in Serie A he had twice been selected for the first team in the Coppa Italia, playing the full ninety minutes on both occasions, firstly in a 4-2 home win over Delfino Pescara on 5th December 2012 and then in a 0-1 defeat at Juventus a week later. At International level he played four times for the Italian Under-Eighteen side, firstly as a half-time substitute for Marco Maini in a 2-0 home win over Macedonia on 26th September 2012 when he started in the 0-2 defeat by England on 24th October 2012 but was replace in the final minute by Lorenzo Paramatti before playing the full ninety minutes in a 0-3 away loss to Germany on 14th November 2012. He sat unused on the bench for his introduction into the Under-Nineteen team as Italy beat Germany 1-0 on 6th February 2013 before starting in a 1-2 home defeat by Austria on 6th March 2013, when he was replaced by Michele Somma to bring his Under-Eighteen tally to three starts and one game from the bench at that level. The 2013-14 season saw him make his final appearances in the Cagliari Primavera League side in which he started eight games and played the full ninety minutes except when he was replaced by Andrea Demontis in the fifty-first minute of the 0-3 loss at AC Milan on 28th September 2013 and when he was given a straight red card in the seventy-fifth minute of a 1-2 home defeat by Chievo on 23rd November 2013 and this left his Priavera total at thirty-two starts and two from the bench in which he scored once. He also made his first appearance in the Coppa Italia Primavera with a full game in a 0-2 loss at Parma on 28th August 2013. He took his Serie A appearances to four starts and come on as a substitute twice and been unused on the bench twenty-four times, as he started three, on 21-12-2013 in a 1-1 home draw with SSC Napoli, a 1-2 home defeat by AS Livorno on 16th February 2014 and a 0-2 home loss to SS Lazio on 16th March 2014, in which he played a full ninety minutes in each, and a further twelve games on the bench being unused. He did not add to his Serie A Coppa Italia total. He had now moved up into the Italian Under-Nineteen squad and added two starts and three games from the bench and two unused on the bench to the previous unused substitution, as he came on for Michele Somma with ten minutes left of a 1-0 home win over Bulgaria on 6th September 2013 and a game unused on the bench on 13th November 2013 as Italy won 1-0 in Belgium. He came on as a half-time replacement for Pietro Cecceroni on 5th March 2014 as they drew 1-1 at home to Germany and then was once again unused on the bench in a 1-1 draw in the Netherlands five days later and was then again a half-time substitute for Alessio Romagnoli in a 4-2 win over Switzerland in which he scored his first Under-nineteen goal six minutes from time as he headed them into a 4-2 lead. He gained two more caps in the UEFA Euro Championship Qualifiers but although he started both games he was sent off after just eight minutes for a professional foul in the 0-1 loss to the Czech Republic on 24th May 2014 and then after receiving his first yellow card in the thirty-fifth minute he was shown a red for his second yellow in the seventy -first minute of the 1-1 draw with Bulgaria five days later. He joined Delfino Pescara, in the Serie B, for the 2014-15 season, but after only one game for them in the Coppa Italia on 17th August 2014, in which he played the full one hundred and twenty minutes of a game at home to AC Renate that finished 1-1 after extra time and was finally won by Delfino Pescara 5-4 on penalties of wich Del Fabro was not involved despite each side having seven attempts each. He was on the bench for the following round when his team beat Chievo Verona 1-0 at home five days later, but was unused. On 31st August 2014 he signed for a one year loan with Leeds United after Cagliari cancelled the loan agreement with the Serie B team so the new loan could be effected. There was an option in the agreement to make the loan permanent should all parties agree, at the end of the term. By mid-October he had not been called to the Leeds first-team squad but had shown great promise in five games for the successful Leeds Under-Twenty-one team. He had sat unused on the first team bench five times, before he was given his chance to play, when he started the Cup-tie at Sunderland and played the full game. Subsequently he sat unused on the bench on four more occasions. He also scored twice in twelve starts for the Leeds Under -Twenty-One team. He was one of the six former Italian based players that declared themselves unfit prior to the game with Charlton Athletic. He returned to Cagliari at the end of his loan period.