UDINE. Fifty-one goalkeepers have set foot on the pitch in the last season between Serie A and the Italian Cup, of which 21 foreigners and six Friulians counted among the 30 Italians. A fifth of the “number 1” produced at home that have come into the national limelight therefore comes from our region, a huge and not exactly random figure, which confirms the tradition of football excellence in a role that continues to bring Friuli to the general attention of insiders, sure that the land that brought Dino Zoff and Riccardo Toros to the fore, just to mention two great goalkeepers of the past, has always remained fertile.
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However, it would obviously be limiting to dwell only on the geolocation of the territory to justify a production of goalkeepers. The phenomenon, on the other hand, can find an explanation in the combination of the passion and self-denial of talented young people and the quality of the trainers.
Meret and the national team
The convocation of Alex Meret by the national coach Roberto Mancini for the upcoming traveling European Championship represents at its best the potential, rather than the point of arrival, of the “made in Friuli” tradition. The ’97 class of Flambruzzo, which Udinese first bred and then sold to Napoli without exploiting the technical investment, but obtaining only the economic one thanks to the rich capital gain of 26 million, in fact he guides the movement of young fellow goalkeepers, being the leading exponent. Meret was one of the six Friulians seen most at work in Serie A in the last season which recorded Ivan Provedel 29 times to guard the Spezia goalposts.
Much more distant, in terms of appearances, are the four games played by Guglielmo Vicario with Cagliari, Simone Scuffet’s single at Udinese, where in the last three minutes of the championship Gotti made the ’02 class debut Manuel Gasparini, in a last day that also saw the debut Gian Marco Crespi to Crotone. Leaving aside the minutes, what counts is the trust that the respective clubs have had in these guys, wanted at the court of football that counts. All numbers to which must also be added those of two other Friulians such as Samuele Perisan and Andrea Seculin from Gorizia, this year in B respectively with Pordenone and Chievo.
Filone bianconero
It was opened by Meret and Scuffet, both grown up in the Udinese youth teams and both called up very young with the youth national teams, and today considered almost veterans for the 111 matches in Serie A, of which 71 played by Meret and 40 by Scuffet, the class ’96 that in Serie A did not even make his debut with Guidolin.
Pay attention to the particular “blue”, because the attention of federal coaches to young goalkeepers is often synonymous with quality, the same that also promises to have Gasparini, who started with the Italian Under 15, and Matteo Carnelos, born in 2003 at the Udinese Primavera, a native of Motta di Livenza, already called up for the Italian stages of the category. That the Juventus club sees a lot of attention on the goalkeepers to be “weaned” is also confirmed by the DOC Udine Gian Marco Crespi (2001) and Guglielmo Vicario (1996), the latter who grew up in Ancona Udine, two of the three Friulian goalkeepers who made A recently together with Gasparini.
Right Tagliamento
The province of Pordenone is also very generous, from which Provedel (’94) come from – who already has 43 matches in Serie A between Empoli and Spezia – who as a boy had started as a forward playing forward until 2009 in the Pordenone youth teams. . From San Vito al Tagliamento they arrive instead Samuele Perisan, the class of ’97 who grew up in Udinese before being shot at Triestina, Arezzo and Padua, until the definitive transfer to Pordenone last summer, and that Denis Franchi (2002) who caused a sensation for having even ended up at PSG at just 16 years old.
He has not yet wet his debut among the big names and has had an excellent season with the Under 19, but he has already made history as he was the first under 17 player to go from an Italian amateur club to a foreign professional one. Paolo Tonus, former director of Prata Falchi, the club from which Provedel and Carnelos also passed, always remembers this. And to think that Franchi was from Udinese.
New levers
What about the future? At Udinese they are ready to bet on the determination of Francesco Zuccarello Di Bartolo, the class of 2005 already called by the national Under category for the stages in Coverciano. Juventus coach Max Brunner has already put it to work. The 17-year-old has the physicist “a la Donnarumma” Edoardo Piana of Soave, under the Juventus Primavera. And he too bodes well.
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