He achieved the FIDE titles of International Master (IM) in 1988 and Grandmaster (GM) in 1996, following a plus score on board one for Italy at the Chess Olympiad in Yerevan.

Both players finished the contest on 8 points from 11 rounds and Godena triumphed narrowly in the rapid and blitz play-off.

[1] At the Aeroflot Open 2006 in Moscow, Godena tied for 1st–12th in the A2 group, finishing 12th on tiebreak with a rating performance of 2628.

In 2016, Godena won the 4th Francophonie Championship in Menton, France edging out Bassem Amin, Pablo Almagro Llamas and Yannick Gozzoli on tiebreak score.

While Godena was once nicknamed "The Italian Machine" by Sergei Shipov, other commentators believe that his disproportionate time management might be holding back his further progress.