Francesco Camarda’s remarkable start to the season with Milan’s Primavera side didn’t just continue but it got even better yesterday with his first hat-trick.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport recall, Camarda scored in his first appearance for the Primavera, then he netted a brace in the UEFA Youth League in his first start for them, and yesterday afternoon he bagged three times in a 7-0 win against Virtus Entella in the cup.
The first was from a penalty, like against Newcastle, the other two from the right (the last one helped by a deflection). That’s six goals in six games in the season so far, of which only two were as a starter.
Against Entella he played for an hour and then came off for Diego Sia. If it hadn’t been for an excellent intervention by Sanfilippo he would have also scored a fourth goal.
The crazy thing is that he is only 15 and a half years old. Camarda was born on 10 March 2008, the day after Ancelotti’s Milan won against Empoli.
What filters from Milan is that they know they have a real gem for the future, but they do not want to put too much pressure on him and thus are preaching calm.
The Primavera meanwhile are flying as a team with six games and six victories. Before scoring seven goals against Entella they beat Juventus 3-0 in the league, one in which they lead with maximum points, 12 goals scored and two conceded.
Last year Ignazio Abate’s side reached the semi-final of the Youth League, now he looks down on everyone with 12 points. One of his pupils, Davide Bartesaghi, made his debut at San Siro on Saturday.
Who knows when it will be Camarda’s turn, but in the meantime he is scoring and dreaming without saying a word. Humble, reserved and protected by the club. In March he will turn 16.
Is it possible that at his 16th Bday, he gets a taste of the first team? I mean, is it allowed?
If he’s THAT good and let’s all hope he is, we might not have to invest in a new nb 9.
Not sure if you are actually asking a question or whether you are being ironic but at the age of 16 and below players need dispensation to play as it was also the case with both donnarumma and mastour even though the latter never played for us he was on our bench at a a young age and could have become the youngest ac milan player ever to get fielded for the first team so theoretically camarda could get fielded this season as he will turn 16 in march if i remember correctly.
He’s too young for such pressure. He should be developing under the radar.
He should but as he keeps performning with older players i think its a matter of time before they cant ignore it anylonger and if it doesnt happen at the end of this season i would be surprised if it doesnt happen in the next or at the very least at the start of 25/26 season where he will be 18 years old.
Pioli’s contract will also expire in 2025. So why not promote Abate with the youth players. Would be a good decision if Abate continues to perform like this.
Well ive never had any issues with abate neither as a player or for that matter as a coach and as much as i sometimes disagree with some of piolis decisions im not of the view that pioli should be sacked or replaced either. Promoting abate is propably far too early even in 2025 but it could propably help if we want to promote more youngsters but i doesnt see it as paramount in regard of camardas progression.
Promoting Brocchi & Pippo from Primavera to Milan brought us many, many trophies and success, right? Yeah, let’s do that again. 😀
I agree bb but there are also at least 1 exception in capello 😛
Dont get me wrong i love pippo and no disrec towards him but he is propaby the worst of the bunch we have promoted from the primavera as it seemed like a 4-2-4 gung-ho style when he was our coach,
“Dont get me wrong i love pippo and no disrec towards him but he is propaby the worst of the bunch”
Yep. Can’t say I miss his decisions to take all the attackers off for the last 10 minutes to “secure a one goal lead” and replacing them with CBs so that we had 5 defenders and no strikers. I think we conceded every time he did that and drew or even lost. 😀
There’ no such thing as ‘under the radar’ these days, certainly not for clubs like ours which are global brands and have talked about this player for over two years. If he’s as good as we think, ie. potential to be world class, we wont keep him for long, but if we can build the right environment for him to stay for say another 5-6 years we can sell him for a lot more than if he is poached at 17-18.
Of course it’s not. You see people hyping 5 year olds kicking football on social media. And that was the point of my comment, it was criticism. Too much pressure on young talents.
It’s important he keeps playing and enjoying it for at least another 1 and half years. A loan to Serie B or even midtable clubs for a year or two, then, Milan… He’ll be ready then.
Let him grow with patient , no need to forcing him play on serie A in age 15-16 years old . Remember pietro pelegri ? Genoa forcing his debut as striker in the age 16 and the result he become injury prone due to physical not ready