| Who is your favourite Serie A player of recent times? I’m sure everyone could compile a list of candidates. There are obvious choices, world-beaters like Kaka and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and one-club men, standard bearers for their chosen side like Paolo Maldini.
Even amongst the more obscure choices, however, I doubt many would echo my choice of David Di Michele. Yes, the little striker you may have noticed netting an underwhelming total of six goals at Torino last season.
Admittedly he has skipped from club to club in the last few years. From Reggina to Udinese, Palermo, Torino, and now West Ham on a season long loan deal, falling out with almost every Coach he’s had on the way.
It seems, like Antonio Cassano, David has an attitude problem. Unlike Fantonio though, Di Michele can’t use youth as an excuse at the age of 32. I haven’t even mentioned his suspension for involvement in a betting scandal yet.
Nonetheless, like any footballer, the final judgement lies with what they deliver on the pitch, and Di Michele is an absolute joy to watch. He jinks between defenders, executes flicks, scissor-kicks and dummies with consummate ease, hits free-kicks as well as Alessandro Del Piero, and loves, above all else, to chip the ball over an onrushing goalkeeper.
Di Michele is an entertainer, not afraid to fall on his face or miss the odd sitter, knowing as he does the adulation that can come with perfectly performing that training ground manoeuvre, from featuring in goal of the season charts to having kids and five-a-side amateurs striving to copy you.
The high point of his career was at Palermo in 2006-07, where his explosive partnership with Amauri even had some believing the Sicilian side could win the League.
For all these reasons and more it is disappointing to see Di Michele depart the peninsula for the Premiership. Not only has Serie A lost one of its biggest characters, but I fear the one time Azzurri front man may struggle in England.
The Premiership has never been a patient environment for newcomers, particularly Serie A stars. Not only did Bernardo Corradi and Rolando Bianchi bomb at Man City, but two of Serie A’s greatest strikers, Hernan Crespo and Andriy Shevchenko, struggled at Stamford Bridge.
Whatever happens, he won’t be forgotten.
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