Antonio Cassano is making up for lost time. On Friday, playing his first competitive international since June 2008, the striker rescued Italy from a goal down against Estonia – scoring the equaliser on the hour mark before laying on Leonardo Bonucci’s winner with the neatest of backheel flicks. Then yesterday it emerged that his wife Carolina Marcialis is two months pregnant. They married two months ago.

If Fantantonio has made no secret of his desire to become a father then his countrymen have been even less subtle about their own hopes of seeing him back in an Italy shirt. Throughout the World Cup qualifying campaign the then coach Marcello Lippi was begged, cajoled and heckled over his refusal to call up Cassano. Newspaper polls suggested overwhelming support for a recall, as did the banners unfurled at every Azzurri fixture and even one rugby game – where coach Nick Mallett was jokingly implored to give him a run-out for the Test side instead.

One fan was banned from all Italian stadia for eight years after running onto the pitch a number of games wearing a Superman t-shirt bearing the message “Cassano in the national team”. Mario Ferri showed up on the pitch again at the World Cup semi-final between Spain and Germany. This time his shirt simply read: “I told you so”.

Italy’s miserable performances in South Africa only confirmed the nation’s worst fears about a side painfully short of creativity. Lippi’s successor, Cesare Prandelli, is too astute to believe Cassano presents the answer to all his problems yet also smart enough to know he could not overlook such a player when so few alternatives are available. The best days of Francesco Totti, Alessandro Del Piero and Mauro Camoranesi have been and gone. Those of Mario Balotelli and Sebastian Giovinco are yet to arrive.

Cassano ought to have been the bridge between two generations but instead chose a different path. His talent has been beyond question since the day he opened his Serie A account at 19 with a breathtakingly beautiful goal against Inter. His attitude towards the game, though, has often been beyond the comprehension of fans who fantasise about having even a modicum such natural ability.

In amongst tales of sex with “600-700 women”, and the post-coital pastries that followed, Cassano declares in his autobiography Dico Tutto (I’ll tell you everything) that: “I know I haven’t given 100% physically or mentally to this game”. At best, he muses, he probably gave just half that. “We fool ourselves into thinking we have to do our best and make sacrifices to succeed,” he adds. “But why? Trophies come and go. Once you’ve retired, it will all be gone, they’ll just be numbers in an almanac.”

It is a viewpoint so at odds with our traditional expectations and feelings about sport that many have struggled to come to terms with it. For all that he relished having a football at his feet, Cassano never dwelled on notions of sporting glory. Just as when he used to bunk off school and while away the days knocking out car headlights with a football in Bari Vecchia, Cassano played above all because he enjoyed it more than the alternative.

While he relished his goals and the adulation – and wealth – they brought, to him the sport was little more than a string of isolated incidents. As he told reporters on Sunday: “In my head football was always just a series of tricks and touches, I thought I was the best and didn’t need to worry about my team-mates.”

But if such words help justify Lippi’s decision to overlook him this summer then it is also true that the manager failed to recognise a change in Cassano. He added on Sunday that “Three years ago I told myself it was time to start taking this job seriously,or else go home and sell salami”.

If it would be unrealistic to pretend there was any sort of overnight transformation, then it is still fair to say that his career trajectory has been pointing upwards since he abandoned Real Madrid for Sampdoria in the summer of 2007. That might seem on paper like a step down but Madrid had come to symbolise the worst of his excesses – a city in which he overindulged off the pitch and underperformed on it. He was, by his own admission happy to sit on the bench and get fat. Joining Sampdoria represented the resumption of a career on hold.

There have been hiccups along the way – not least last season when he was left out of Sampdoria’s first team for more than a month by Luigi Del Neri over his refusal to accept he should play as the ‘second’, or deeper-lying, striker. But Cassano’s changing mentality is reflected in the fact he reacted not by going off the rails but by coming back even stronger. “I was furious but when I returned, I scored six goals in nine or 10 games playing as the second striker,” said Cassano. “Del Neri was right.”

But if such words will have been encouraging to Prandelli, there is also a note of warning. Having ignored tactics and team-mates for so long, Cassano is only now, at 28, beginning to develop an understanding how he can be most effective within different formations. Deployed on the left of a three-man attack against Estonia, Cassano made little impact on the match before his goal, and even his exchanges with club team-mate Giampaolo Pazzini seemed out of sync.

His performances will improve over time with the national team and his contributions against Estonia support the point many had been making about his ability to be decisive even when he is not playing well – something few players in the Italian set-up have been able to say of late. But fans should not expect too much, too soon.

Italy had gone seven games without a win before the victory over Estonia, and at every position there are uncertainties. Who should lead the line up front? Can Prandelli really get away with a midfield three of Daniele De Rossi, Andrea Pirlo and Riccardo Montolivo – not one of them a classic midfield ‘enforcer’? Which full-backs will provide some much-needed forward thrust without compromising the defence? Who should start in goal while Gigi Buffon is out injured?

Cassano, clearly, cannot resolve these issues. He likely cannot make up the short-fall in creativity on his own either. But he can do some rather brilliant things with a football. And he seems to be in a hurry.

Paolo Bandini covers Italian football for guardian.co.uk and Astro SuperSport, as well as The Score. You can follow him on Twitter @Paolo_Bandini.