Player Focus: Darmian's Promising Start to Life with the Azzurri

Jorge Luis Pinto went to a football stadium and fell in love. It was the Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires. The year was 1978. A World Cup was on. Pinto had tickets to see Italy play Argentina and witnessed a shock. The hosts lost. Roberto Bettega’s 67th minute strike was the only goal of the game. Argentina would bounce back and go on to lift the World Cup for the first time but the teenage Colombian in the stands was left enamoured with Italy. They played the best football of the tournament. Better even than the Netherlands who eliminated them in the semi-finals.
 
Pinto has been infatuated with Italian football ever since. His outlook on coaching has taken inspiration from Giovanni Trapattoni and Marcello Lippi. To prepare a team to play Italy at a World Cup then is “a dream” come true for him. “It’s like meeting a famous person that you have wanted to meet for years,” the Costa Rica coach said before warning: “I know you like the back of my hand.” Pinto did however admit that he was unfamiliar with one player on Italy’s team. “I wasn’t aware of Matteo Darmian,” he revealed. England weren’t either.
 
Darmian had made his senior international debut only a fortnight before the tournament began, appearing in the stalemate with Ireland at Craven Cottage. Called up to the provisional 30, he was an outside bet to make the final 23. But Darmian impressed Cesare Prandelli so much in training that not only did he earn himself a seat on the plane to Brazil but a place in his starting XI too. No one’s stock has risen higher than his in the past month within the Italy camp.
 
Further to Pinto’s own memories of 1978, Darmian’s emergence has brought with it yet more Azzurri-related flashbacks of that tournament 36 years ago. Not since then had Torino had as many players in La Nazionale’s World Cup squad [Alessio Cerci, Ciro Immobile - prior to his move to Borussia Dortmund - and Darmian]. Other parallels include the coming to light on the world stage of another Italy full-back that summer: Antonio Cabrini. He made his debut in their opener against France and would hold down that position for the next decade.
 
Darmian is four years older than Cabrini was then. He played on the right against England though he can and in all probability will be used on the left against Costa Rica. His ambidextrousness and versatility is one of the reasons Prandelli holds him in such high regard. But just where did he come from?

 
Darmian grew up in Rescaldina and like so many footballers in Italy, he first started kicking a ball around on the pitches run by the local church. At 10, he and three others had a trial with AC Milan. Darmian was the only one picked. “We’re still all friends. One of them works as a boiler man. The other still studies and the third has a kid.” Darmian instead went to Milanello. “Paolo Maldini was always my role model. I was even lucky enough to get to train with him. He’s a legend so go easy with the comparisons.”
 
Inevitably when a club like Milan has a promising young defender on their books, they are spoken about as the next Maldini, the next Nesta. It was no different for Darmian but it didn’t work out. “Matteo needed to bulk up and to go get some experience elsewhere,” Maldini recalled in La Gazzetta dello Sport. “Those were different times. It wasn’t easy to find a starting place at Milan.” After making only four appearances, Darmian was sent on loan to second division side Padova and was then sold in co-ownership to Palermo. They’d later trade their share in him with Torino, who, after a couple of seasons, bought out Milan’s remaining stake in the player. “We sold him for €1m,” Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi sighed last week. “I reckon [Torino president Urbano] Cairo got a good deal.”
 
Darmian has blossomed this year. He charged up and down the right for Torino, combining with Cerci as they qualified for Europe proper for the first time in 20 years. A centre-back at the beginning of his career, Darmian’s adaptability - he can play either left or right-back and not suffer the transition to wing-back unlike many of his other contemporaries - has made him especially useful to his coaches for club and country.

 
What delights about Darmian though is that he can also defend. So often these days full-backs are frustrated wingers. But not him. He likes to get forward and cross the ball but he also likes and knows how to defend. Darmian ranked seventh in Serie A for tackles last season with 108. Still he didn’t make a single one against England. He didn’t have to. The player in front of him Antonio Candreva kept pulling England’s left-back inside giving Darmian the freedom to attack the right flank. Compare his heat map in Manaus to his season average and you can see the difference in influence. Some were calling him Dar-Maicon.
 
He made 38 passes with a completion rate of 87% and had 2 efforts on goal. Mario Balotelli should also perhaps have put away one of his crosses. La Gazzetta called Darmian’s performance “almost a consecration. We have found a true full-back.”  He greatly impressed his teammates. “I hope he gets to taste bigger stages like the Champions League,” Giorgio Chiellini said. “Torino fans won’t like me for saying it.” He was right about that: they really didn’t. “Chiellini’s comments are proof that it’s not enough to have gone to university and got a degree [like the Juventus defender did] to be intelligent,” Cairo fumed. “He should have more respect for Torino fans.”

If Darmian maintains the level he showed against England, however, interest in him is only going to grow. Roma and Juventus are said to be seriously contemplating a move. Patience is required. “Leave him in peace,” Cabrini told La Stampa. “Let him follow his own path [rather than liken him to me]. And if he plays a little less well against Costa Rica than the other night, I hope there is no trial.” After all, Darmian’s World Cup, not to mention his Italy career, has only just begun.

How did you rate Matteo Darmian's performance against England and what does the future hold for the full-back? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below