In the summer of 2013 a very young Locatelli played against the Biancocelesti. He was a precocious talent of the AC Milan Primavera coached by Inzaghi
The new star of the national team, the midfielder Manuel Locatelli, began to taste the football of the “greats” at the Dante Merlo in Vigevano in a summer friendly.
The match
We have to go back almost 8 years. Saturday 7 September 2013. The Vigevano Calcio of the Roman president Paolo Pugliese and the “viginon” coach Marco Poma is preparing to face the championship of excellence with ambition. The Merlo stadium is full as it hasn’t been seen for years. Milan Primavera is coming. The most prominent man on the team is the coach. Filippo Inzaghi, fresh from retirement from football, striker of the national team world champion in 2006 and goalscorer of AC Milan champion of Europe in 2003 and 2007. The eyes of the fans are almost all for Superpippo. It was a real match on the pitch. It ends 2-1 for Milan Primavera who only wins at the end. Calabria, the current side of Milan, opens the scoring in the first half. The delicate foot of the Aronese Vigevano playmaker Matteo Leto Colombo responds in the second half and sets the final 2-1 at the end of the rings. Inzaghi’s AC Milan sends out all boys born in 1995 and 1996, therefore aged 18 and 17.
In the middle of the second half, however, Superpippo pulls out from the bench a boy two years younger, many in the youth sectors. His name is Manuel Locatelli, he was born in January 1998. Unshaven, with a slender body but already “planted” in the middle of the game. That Inzaghi believed in him will not be a mystery. In fact, two years later Inzaghi is the coach of the first AC Milan team and adds Locatelli, still a minor, to the squad. Locatelli’s talent explodes in autumn 2016, with a goal for Juventus in the league. Then the midfielder no longer convinces Milan. He leaves the Rossoneri 2018 after the whole youth team. A transfer to Sassuolo that brings Milan 14 million euros. The rest is recent history. Now Locatelli, according to the transfermarkt transfer market site, is worth 35 million. And it is followed by big clubs, including Juventus. Meanwhile, Locatelli dreams and makes you dream with the blue shirt.
The memories of who was on the pitch
“Who would have thought that that day I would have found myself in front of a future champion – recalls Matteo Leto Colombo, 37-year-old descendant of a dynasty of hoteliers in Arona, playmaker with the vice of scoring that Vigevano and who will start next season with Baveno in Piedmontese Excellence -. They were strong guys, you could see. Reading the match report, however, we see that only a few have made it. I hope that that match also served Locatelli, now a blue star ». «A nice memory – adds Ettore Provasio, 29 years old and former also of the Pavese Academy as well as the midfielder of the struggle and government of that Vigevano -. It was noticeable that they were gifted boys. As always, few emerge at the highest levels ». “Now we are all cheering for Locatelli and the national team, as we imagined 8 years ago that we had a future national champion in front of us” closes the ducal coach of the time, Marco Poma.