There are a number of top Italian clubs that are keen on signing Giovanni Leoni and AC Milan have been credited with interest by a report today.
According to Il Secolo XIX (via Calciomercato.com), the race for Leoni is on. The 17-year-old may have gone under the radar given he plays in Serie B with Sampdoria but he immediately established himself as the jewel of Andrea Pirlo’s team.
He only arrived in Liguria from Padova in January but Samp saw enough to buy him permanently for €1.5m, also presuming that there would be a queue for the young defender, and it seems at the moment that they were right.
Il Secolo XIX reports how a battle has broken out between the big Italian teams over Leoni as Napoli, Juventus, Milan and Inter have made moves, with Sampdoria wanting to cash in on his sale and, above all, wanting to keep the player on loan for another year.
Yesterday, agent Edoardo Crnjar was spotted at the Nerazzurri’s headquarters suggesting Inter are serious, but in the meantime Leoni is trying to keep focus on the Italy Under 19 side having been called up by Bernardo Corradi for the second pre-European Championship camp in Northern Ireland.
Milan are showing a willingness to invest in the future and their Milan Futuro project, as Gabriele Minotti is currently undergoing a medical and he will join the U23 team from Giana Erminio.
This guy, Camarda and Pafundi are the three biggest U19 Italian talents.
Pafundi the dwarf? Nope, Liberali and Scotti are the most promising midfield talents.
Longoni as well
If anything, I pray that the Futuro is a bridge for the youth players to come to the senior team. For the sake of not only Milan’s but Italy’s future.
Italy’s youngsters are reigning Euro champs AND runner-ups at the WC. Yet our senior team just embarrassed themselves for all of Europe to see.
There isn’t a clear path for the youth to advance to the senior teams and develop further. Instead they get loaned out to village clubs and outside of the country to develop… It’s a HUGE problem and one FIGC needs to fix. But seeing as to how they haven’t made any strides since 2006 and two missed WC’s I don’t know that anything will ever change…
The only legal way would be for the FIGC to give bonuses to teams that gave the most minutes to young Italian players e.g. a €10-15 million bonus to each Serie A team that has say 4 Italians in their regular starting 11s and half that amount to teams in Serie B. Many more of the smaller clubs would do it because for them that’s a lot of money.
FIGC isn’t giving money away to anyone LMAO!!! They tried to abolish the growth decree to get more money in FFS.
Is a tough spot because clubs don’t have the responsibility to look out for the best interest of the national team. They focus on their own success.
And FIGC can’t even get out of their own way and/or make it enticing for clubs to use more youth… Italy is a village run by elders who are always reactive and never progressive to stay relevant.
So frustrating.