Federico Gatti under construction.
During the day, he’d lay bricks and slate roofs. Come the nights, he somehow found the energy to play football on the muddy, often foggy, pitches near Rivoli, the town just west of Turin where he grew up.
Gatti comes from a family circle of Turin supporters, and they would have liked to see him play for their club. But when Gatti left school and put on the helmet, a career in Serie A seemed unlikely.
It’s been almost two years since he visited his nonagenarian grandfather, Domenico, who lives almost next door to Juventus’ stadium, north of Turin. At the time, Gatti was playing at the Italian branch of Frosinone, located about an hour’s drive southeast of Rome. He had returned to the north because the elite of Turin were about to signal to him. It’s a dream come true for the family.
“When I present a player, the club buys him,” Torino coach Ivan Juric said.
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To his great regret, Gatti did not sign up for them. When he appeared in front of Nonno’s house, Gatti had just passed a medical with city rivals Juventus.
“Now he’s their player,” lamented Juric. As a club we want to improve the way we talk internally. It’s not like such a smart player comes up from the lower divisions.
Once Gatti put down the trowel and let the concrete mixer rest, he began climbing divisions in Italy. The 25-year-old centre-back has played at all levels; Amateur, Semi-Pro, D, C and B Series.
When Roberto Mancini gifted him his first England cap at Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Molineux in June last year, he had yet to play in Italy’s most sensible category.
Gatti’s story is reminiscent of that of Moreno Torricelli, a joiner in a furniture factory who stood out in a friendly between semi-pro Caratese and Juventus in the summer of 1992. Giovanni Trapattoni, the Juventus coach at the time, asked him if he’d like to train with his team over the rest of pre-season.
Roberto Baggio, the Ballon d’Or winner, gave Torricelli the nickname Geppetto, after the carpenter in Pinocchio. And it’s a fairy tale, as full-back Torricelli got a permanent contract and much more.
He won the UEFA Cup (now Europa League) at the end of that first season, Serie A 3 times in 4 seasons from 1994 to 1995, the Coppa Italia in 1995 and 2001, as well as the Champions League and Club World Cup in 1996. He also played 10 times for Italy, being part of their squad for Euro 96 and the World Cup two years later.
Gatti’s ascent has been more measured, less vertigo-inducing. He has not completely come out of nowhere.
Frosinone’s sporting director, Guido Angelozzi, who tackled this exercise in the north with Gatti in January 2022, to close the deal with Turin, had tried to sell him. “Federico is like (Giorgio) Chiellini, with the feet of (Leonardo) Bonucci,” he said.
The hyperbole worked. Juventus reached a deal for €10 million (£8. 6m/$10. 8 million at the prevailing exchange rate) and loaned Gatti to Frosinone for the remainder of the 2021-22 season.
When he first appeared on the educational field of his new club, Gatti’s father, Ludovico, says Chiellini greeted him by saying, “This is my heir. “Then it was Matthijs de Ligt, then Merih Demiral. But they were all sold for cash when Cristiano Ronaldo’s contract and the Covid-19 pandemic put a strain on Juventus’ finances.
Whether Gatti goes on to have a similar career to Chiellini remains to be seen. It’s probably another construction-yard moment; as hard to contemplate now as it was for him to imagine himself having a career in the game at all then. But Gatti is already, if not a symbol of this Juventus team, then a cult hero.
Last Friday, when hosts Monza equalised in stoppage time, it looked like Juventus were going to drop two points. Only Gatti wasn’t done. In the 94th minute, he popped up and scored a winner. It is one of those moments that could, in retrospect, seem critical if Juventus become champions again in May.
“What can I say?” breathed Gatti, trying to catch his breath after running outside. “I don’t know. It’s a feeling to score such a great goal. “
And the night did it again. Call it Gatti-gol.
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A player from humble origins, whose CVs include little-known clubs such as Pavarolo, Saluzzo and Verbania, guided the victor against champions Napoli to return Juventus to the most sensible of Serie A.
Only the Leverkusen duo of Alex Grimaldo (seven) and Jeremie Frimpong and former Atalanta Union Berlin winger Robin Gosens (both four) have scored more goals between defenders than Gatti’s three this season in Europe’s top five domestic leagues.
Defence has been Juventus’ form of attack lately.
Federico Chiesa hasn’t scored for his club since September. His strike partner Dusan Vlahovic had a penalty saved against Monza and fluffed Juventus’ first chance against Napoli. Moise Kean is still goalless and needed substituting in late October when the frustration at having two goals disallowed against Verona boiled over. Arkadiusz Milik isn’t as effective as he was at this stage last season.
Fortunately, five of Juventus’ last eight goals came from defenders. Bremer and Daniele Rugani took care of business against Cagliari last month and Andrea Cambiaso’s 96th-minute winning goal against Verona was scored by Kean.
Defence made the difference in both areas, and the win gave Juventus their ninth clean sheet in 15 games. He has allowed the fewest shots inside the box among the top five European leagues. Five of the nine goals conceded came from outside. Four came in a single game at Sassuolo, on a September afternoon when everything that could go wrong went wrong: Wojciech Szczesny made a mistake and couldn’t contain Armand Lauriente’s first game. As for Gatti, he scored an absurd own goal. A late game that may have left his confidence in tatters, as Juventus lost for what remains the only time this season.
Since then, both players have bounced back strongly. Szczesny, for example, made a great save in the 0-0 draw against Olivier Giroud in a 1-0 win over Milan at San Siro in October. On Friday he repeated the same feat, preventing Napoli captain Giovanni Di Lorenzo from getting anywhere near diversity. the most powerful hands. Meanwhile, Gatti honorably thwarted that very goal with a series of great moments that boosted morale and bolstered confidence within the Juventus team that this could be his year.
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Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri continues to insist that the goal is to finish high enough to return the club to the Champions League, but his players continue to drift away from the match line.
After the 1-1 draw with Inter Milan in the Italian Derby two weeks ago, Adrien Rabiot, one of Allegri’s captains, said: “The goal, my goal, what we communicate to each other in the dressing room, is the Scudetto, because we are an organization of champions, of very sensible players, and we have to think like that.
Instead of sounding presumptuous, what is striking is the humility in this regard. Juventus lost its operatic spirit – blue collar – in the Ronaldo years, at the beginning of the decade. It is now an organization that the staff of one of the Fiat plants in Turin can identify with more.
Weston McKennie touched on it after last night’s game.
Everyone on his side of the pitch has come through hardship. Gatti was working on a building site aged 17. Cambiaso, the crosser for his goal, also played in Serie D and overcame an awful knee injury suffered in 2019. McKennie didn’t seem to have a future at the club. He was loaned to Leeds United for the second half of last season, experienced relegation from the Premier League and, initially, didn’t look like he’d be in the squad for Juventus’ pre-season tour this summer.
More broadly, the turbulence of last year, when the Prisma scandal led to the resignation of Andrea Agnelli and his board of directors and the deduction, suspension and deduction of issues, has strengthened the character and made this team resilient.
Whether Juventus can go the distance remains to be seen. Their suspension from European football will help in terms of fixture congestion and they won’t lose any of their stars to the African Cup of Nations, which runs for a month from the middle of January.
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Allegri asks the team to stay in the offer and go too far, but the omens pass.
Juventus has laid the foundations for this title.
Gatti and his teammates will have to rely on them, brick after brick.
(Top photo: Daniele Badolato – Juventus FC/Getty Images)