The coolness, from eleven meters, was that of an experienced striker, despite his only 17 years of age. But if it is true that football sometimes follows the same pattern as fairy tales, happy endings included, the one who scored the decisive penalty in the final against Belgium that made Italy U17 continental champions (last Sunday in Tallinn) could only be Diego PerilloYes, because in addition to having scored the first goal of this triumphant European ride, he was the same bomber of theEmpoli U17 to make this journey possible. Last October, again in Estonia, with five minutes remaining in the third matchday of Group 1 of the first round of qualifying against Ukraine, with the score tied at 1-1, coach Franceschini’s men were virtually condemned to relegation to League B. Then, the 2-1 goal scored by the young striker from Prato changed the Azzurri’s fortunes, securing qualification for the second round of League A, which Italy then dominated. These crucial moments led to the historic victory at the European Championship in their category two nights ago. It was a night to remember, with the 1-1 draw in the 90th minute that sent Italy and Belgium to a penalty shootout for the title. After two Belgian errors and one Italian one, Perillo himself gave Italy the victory with a penalty that made the final 4-3.<\/p>\n
Diego is not yet of age, but looking at his career it is difficult not to call him ‘predestined’ (already 13 goals in 18 ‘contests’ with the U17 national team): he started playing at 5 years old in Vaianese Impavida Vernio, then moved to Prato and then to the then Maliseti Tobbianese in 2016. And in 2017 Empoli noticed him. From then on it was a crescendo: this year with theEmpoli U17Perillo scored 23 goals in 22 games, leading the Azzurrini to the Scudetto finals. And the U17 European Championship confirmed his status as a promising youngster: he made five appearances, playing a total of 362 minutes, scoring one goal (the decisive one against France) and providing one assist. Could he one day wear the senior national team jersey? It’s too early to tell. But dreaming is free, and it’s easier with a European Youth Championship title under his belt.<\/p>\n
“Ever since he was a kid, he had undisputed talent, he knew how to shield the ball with his body, he was good with his head, he could shoot with both feet equally well,” says Antonio Busc\u00e8’s current assistant coach at Cosenza, Francesco Nuti, who trained him in the Empoli youth system. “And he combined this with a fantastic personality. He wasn’t an extroverted child, but I never had to call him out for inappropriate behavior. I also met his family, including his father before he passed away during the Covid period, and I can say they were wonderful people. Always present on the pitch, but never pushy. An anecdote? I coached him during the Covid period and I remember that before the derby in Florence, which we won by a landslide, seeing them laughing and joking a bit too much before the match, I said to them: ‘Laugh, laugh, or they’ll give us four.’ At the end of the match, he was the first to come to me smiling: ‘Thank goodness, coach, they should have given us four.'”<\/p>\n
John Florentine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The coolness, from eleven meters, was that of an experienced striker, despite his only 17 years of age.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[89],"tags":[52888,52886,167,52889,52887,52890,166],"class_list":["post-103607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallinn","tag-decisive","tag-diego","tag-estonia","tag-numbers","tag-perillo","tag-predestined","tag-tallinn"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116720271806377867","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}