Archive for the ‘Italy’ Category

Italy should be grateful that Alessio Cerci turned up at all. Addressing reporters at the national team’s Coverciano training base on Monday, the Torino winger said that he was finding his first-ever call-up a little hard to get his head around. “It seems impossible [that I should be here],” he said. “I’ve always been talked about as a ‘kid with potential’. But for various reasons I never kicked on, I never showed my true worth.”

He had experienced a similar sensation once before in his career. Back in 2003, Cerci was a precocious 15-year-old forward playing for Roma’s youth team. His superior speed, technique and ability to beat an opponent one-on-one had been noted by the then manager, Fabio Capello, who instructed his assistant, Italo Galbiati, to call Cerci up for a day’s training with the senior team. Galbiati did as he was told, yet Cerci never showed. The player thought his coach was joking.

Capello forgave the misunderstanding, and within a year Cerci had made his Serie A debut, replacing Daniele Corvia in the 76th minute of Roma’s 0-0 draw with Sampdoria in May 2004. It was to prove something of a false dawn for Cerci, who would play just four more competitive games for the senior team over the next two seasons as Roma cycled through six different managers.

His potential, though, was never in doubt. Cerci represented Italy consistently at every youth category from Under-16 upwards. He was one of the stars of the 2004 Viareggio youth tournament, scoring four goals for a Roma team that finished third. A glowing report of the player’s progress in La Repubblica noted how he would “win derbies on his own”.

The inevitable scramble to define Cerci according to his similarities to existing professional footballers soon began. That journalists still hadn’t understood his talent was reflected in newspaper reports from his first few years as a pro. In the same week Cerci could be likened to players as diverse as Christian Vieri and Adailton.
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Not everybody was caught off guard by Cesare Prandelli’s decision to include an uncapped 20-year-old Serie B midfielder in his provisional Italy squad for Euro 2012. “I’m not surprised: [Marco] Verratti knows how to play football,” declared Zdenek Zeman, the player’s club manager at Pescara. “He has natural talents and significant room for improvement. He must watch and learn from the greats, but he is on the right path.”

If that much is true, then Verratti has Zeman to thank. Although the player’s progress had been sufficient to draw the attention of Italy’s leading clubs long before his manager’s arrival in the summer of 2011, this season has nevertheless represented a turning point. At this time last year Prandelli would not even have considered Verratti as an option in midfield, because up to that point he had typically played in the hole behind the attack.

That changed during Zeman’s very first training session with the club. “Zeman’s 4-3-3 is as tolerant of trequartistas as Mormons are of pre-marital sex,” noted Gazzetta dello Sport’s Jacopo Gerna as he reflected on the immediate decision to convert the player into a deep-lying regista. The manager is famous for his commitment to open, attacking football but he recognised in Verratti a vision which could be best exploited by giving him the space to dictate play.
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