Background
Valeri is the son of former Australian National Soccer League player Walter Valeri. He grew up in Canberra and trained at the Australian Institute of Sport on a football (soccer) scholarship.
Valeri is the son of former Australian National Soccer League player Walter Valeri. He grew up in Canberra and trained at the Australian Institute of Sport on a football (soccer) scholarship.
He attended Street Mary McKillop College in Wanniassa and later Lake Ginninderra College in Belconnen.
He plays for Melbourne Victory and the Australia national soccer team as a defensive midfielder. Valeri was signed as a teenager by Italian giants Inter Milan. He was loaned out to various clubs in Italy to gain further experience, including Grosseto, and both football clubs owned 50 percent of his contract from summer 2005 until June 2007 (for €20,000), when Grosseto bought all the rights by blind auction between the two clubs, for €15,000.
In January 2010 Valeri joined Sassuolo in co-ownership for Euro250,000 fee.
In May 2013, Valeri and his club Sassuolo finished as Serie B champions, thus securing automatic promotion to Serie A for the first time in their history. In January 2014, struggling for game time he opted to return to Serie B with relegation battling Ternana until 30 June in hopes of saving his World Cup place with the Socceroos In June 2014, Carl Valeri returned to his home country signing a 3 year deal with Melbourne Victory.
In September 2015 he was appointed captain of the team Valeri has played for Australia at all international youth levels.
Under-17, Under-20 and Under-23.
He captained the Australian Under-17 team, the "Joeys", at the 2001 Fédération internationale de football association World Youth Championship and competed with the Under-23 squad, the "Olyroos", at the 2004 Athens Olympics. After being an unused substitute in an 2007 Asian Cup qualifier against Bahrain in 2006, the 22-year-old received his second call up to the senior Australian national team in March 2007, as a replacement for the injured defensive midfielder Vince Grella. This made him the 501st player to be capped for Australia.
He made his home debut in a friendly against Uruguay.
Former Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has described Valeri as a key player of the future, and possible successor to Grella. This led to certain sections of the Australian media dubbing him "Mini Vinnie.".