From the book “Vlahovic, it’s just the beginning” by Guido Vaciago from today on newsstands with Tuttosport
Alberto Marangon he had known from the first day that Dusan Vlahovic there is one testa different. Marangon is one of the most experienced Italian sports managers: Beppe’s most trusted collaborator Marotta at Venice first and then at Sampdoria, when Vlahovic lands in Florence, he is the team manager of Fiorentina. And he gets a call from Panteleo Raven: “I entrust you with a boy, Alberto, please take care of him well, because I think this is a phenomenon, so make sure you never miss anything”. In short, special treatment. Marangon he remembers: “Actually, it is my habit to work like this with everyone. But those words of Raven they had intrigued me a little. The manager wasn’t used to speaking so clearly about a player, so when I first met Vlahovic I immediately began to study him well, I wanted to understand if there was something so different about him …. … I remember that end of January 2018, he had him undergo medical examinations in Milan. Corvino called to let me know this was coming little boy aged seventeen and asked me to follow him especially in the first phase of his arrival in Italy, also because when a foreigner arrives the setting is always a bit more complex, because they change language, habits and even the cuisine. Then if it is a young person it is even more complicated. And I remember well Corvino added: attention that this is a phenomenon…. …… And then I remember the size. He was a boy, sure, but he was huge. A giant with the clean face of a teenager. The contrast was almost comical, because the physique was powerful, like a man, and then he had a bit of juvenile high school acne. But what struck me most were his eyes, because he had the gaze of someone who knew exactly where he wanted to go …..
… From the earliest days his was seen wants to improve. Certainly the presence of Milenkovic, Serbian like him and even a little older than him, helped him. But what he got me hit it it was the fact that I always saw him arrive for primo to workout and leave last, long after the others, with an extra workout in the gym. He believes that the care of his work tool, that is his body, is fundamental: it is not just a question of willpower, but of awareness, of understanding how important work is to improve oneself. And Dusan always wants to improve. The training plan of the typical day at Fiorentina generally included a session in the morning and then the obligatory lunch at the sports center. After the session around noon, we gave everyone space until 2.30pm for therapies or massages, but then after a certain hour the kitchen staff wanted to go home. So I always had to go and retrieve Vlahovic in lecture. And I had to threaten him to skip his lunch! Obviously he wasn’t in the gym fooling around, but seriously working on strengthening or postural aspects. Always, every day …. ….. Another adult behavior professional what impressed an eighteen-year-old boy was the study of opponents. He watched videos, asked everyone for information: he wanted to be perfectly aware of who he was going to meet, to understand the characteristics or any weak points.
Unlike many others, yes he complained never when, after a week of training with the first team, he ended up playing for the Primavera at the weekend. Someone of her experiences it as a rejection, he has always lived it as a phase of growth and not as something that diminished her status. And in Spring she made havoc because she went there with the right mind. Great professionalism and a beastly body for the category. The only header of Vlahovic? In 2020 he showed up for training with a Ferrari. A Ferrari color sugar paper! A crazy tack. It wasn’t like him! He so stiff and set on a tamarro Ferrari: crazy stuff! So I went there and I said: “Oh, but then you are young, you finally did a bullshit in your 20s!”. Everyone has it massacred for that car. After a week he brought her back. I asked him: “Did you resell it?” And he replied: “But I didn’t buy it, I just rented it”. So I sighed: not even the bullshit you manage to do them like a boy, even there you put a little head into it. Yes, because I’ve seen so many in my career that I bought Ferrari at the age of twenty. And hardly anyone, for the record, has reached high levels ».