Federico Gatti used to work in construction.
During the day, he’d lay bricks and slate roofs. Come the nights, he somehow found the energy to play football on the muddy, often foggy, pitches near Rivoli, the town just west of Turin where he grew up.
Gatti comes from a family of Torino fans. They would have loved to see him play for their club. But when Gatti left school and put his hard hat on, a career anywhere in Serie A seemed improbable.
It’s now nearly two years since he paid a visit to his nonagenarian grandfather, Domenico, who lives practically next door to the Juventus Stadium in northern Turin. At the time, Gatti was playing in Italy’s second division for Frosinone, which is an hour’s drive south east of Rome. He’d come back up north because top-flight Torino were on the verge of signing him. It was a dream come true for the family.
“When I recommend a player, the club should go out and buy him,” Torino coach Ivan Juric said.
Much to his chagrin, Gatti did not join them. When he showed up outside Nonno’s house, Gatti had just completed a medical with city rivals Juventus.
“He’s now their player,” Juric lamented. “As a club, we have got to improve how we communicate internally. It’s not often a player this good emerges from the lower divisions.”
Once Gatti laid down his trowel and gave the concrete mixer a rest, he began rising through the divisions in Italy. The 25-year-old centre-back has played at every level; amateur, semi-pro, Serie D, C and B.
When Roberto Mancini handed him a first cap against England at Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Molineux in June last year, he had still yet to play in Italy’s top division.
Gatti’s story is reminiscent of that of Moreno Torricelli, a joiner in a furniture factory who stood out in a friendly between semi-pro Caratese and Juventus in the summer of 1992. Giovanni Trapattoni, the Juventus coach at the time, asked him if he’d like to train with his team over the rest of pre-season.
Roberto Baggio, the Ballon d’Or winner, gave Torricelli the nickname Geppetto, after the carpenter in Pinocchio. And it was the stuff of fairytales, because full-back Torricelli won a permanent contract and much, much more.
He lifted the UEFA Cup (today’s Europa League) at the end of that first season, the Serie A title three times in four seasons from 1994-95, the Coppa Italia in 1995 and 2001, and the Champions League and Club World Cup in 1996. He also played 10 times for Italy, making their squads for Euro 96 and the World Cup two years later.
Gatti’s ascent has been more measured, less vertigo-inducing. He has not completely come out of nowhere.
Frosinone’s sporting director Guido Angelozzi, who boarded that train north with Gatti in January 2022 ostensibly to seal the deal with Torino, had tried to upsell him. “Federico is like (Giorgio) Chiellini, with the feet of (Leonardo) Bonucci,” he said.
The hyperbole worked. Juventus struck a deal worth €10million (£8.6m/$10.8m at current exchange rates) and loaned Gatti back to Frosinone for the rest of the 2021-22 season.
When he showed up at his new club’s training ground for the first time, Gatti’s father Ludovico claims Chiellini welcomed him by saying: “Here’s my heir.” The anointed one was supposed to be Cristian Romero. Then it was Matthijs de Ligt, and then Merih Demiral. But all were sold to bring in money when Cristiano Ronaldo’s contract and the Covid-19 pandemic put Juventus’ finances under strain.
Whether Gatti goes on to have a similar career to Chiellini remains to be seen. It’s probably another construction-yard moment; as hard to contemplate now as it was for him to imagine himself having a career in the game at all then. But Gatti is already, if not a symbol of this Juventus team, then a cult hero.
Last Friday, when hosts Monza equalised in stoppage time, it looked like Juventus were going to drop two points. Only Gatti wasn’t done. In the 94th minute, he popped up and scored a winner. It is one of those moments that could, in retrospect, seem critical if Juventus become champions again in May.
“What can I say,” Gatti huffed and puffed, trying to get his breath back after running to the away end. “I don’t know. It’s an unbelievable feeling to score such a big goal.”
And last night, he was at it again. Call him Gatti-gol.
A player from the humblest of origins, whose CV includes little-known clubs Pavarolo, Saluzzo and Verbania, headed the winner against champions Napoli to send Juventus back to the top of Serie A.
Only the Leverkusen duo of Alex Grimaldo (seven) and Jeremie Frimpong and Union Berlin’s former Atalanta wing-back Robin Gosens (both four) have scored more goals among defenders than Gatti’s three this season in Europe’s top five domestic leagues.
Defence is currently Juventus’ best form of attack.
Federico Chiesa hasn’t scored for his club since September. His strike partner Dusan Vlahovic had a penalty saved against Monza and fluffed Juventus’ first chance against Napoli. Moise Kean is still goalless and needed substituting in late October when the frustration at having two goals disallowed against Verona boiled over. Arkadiusz Milik isn’t as effective as he was at this stage last season.
Luckily then, five of Juventus’ last eight goals have come from defenders. Bremer and Daniele Rugani took care of business against Cagliari last month and Andrea Cambiaso’s 96th-minute winner against Verona counted, unlike Kean’s strikes.
The defence is making the difference in both boxes, with this win bringing Juventus’ ninth clean sheet in 15 games. They have allowed the fewest shots inside the box in Europe’s top five leagues. Five of the nine goals they have conceded have come from outside. Four came in one game away to Sassuolo, a September night when everything that could go wrong did go wrong: Wojciech Szczesny made an uncharacteristic mistake, unable to hold Armand Lauriente’s opener. As for Gatti, he scored an absurd late own goal that could have left his confidence in tatters as Juventus lost for what is still the only time this season.
Both players have rebounded emphatically since. Szczesny, for instance, made a huge save at 0-0 from Olivier Giroud in the 1-0 win against Milan at San Siro in October. On Friday, he repeated the same feat, denying Napoli captain Giovanni Di Lorenzo from close range with the strongest of hands. Gatti meanwhile has creditably counteracted that own goal with a series of morale-boosting big moments that are strengthening the conviction within Juventus’ team that this could be their year.
Juventus’ coach Massimiliano Allegri continues to insist the aim is merely finishing high enough to get the club back into the Champions League. But his players keep straying from the party line.
After the 1-1 draw with Inter Milan in the Derby d’Italia two weeks ago, Adrien Rabiot, one of Allegri’s captains, said: “The objective, my objective, what we talk about among ourselves in the dressing room, is the Scudetto, because we are a group of champions, top players, and we have to think like that.”
Rather than come across as presumptuous, it’s the humility of this side that’s striking. Juventus lost their operaia — blue-collar — spirit in the Ronaldo years around the turn of the decade. This is now a group the workers on one of Turin’s Fiat factory lines can identify with better.
Weston McKennie touched on it after last night’s game.
Everyone on his side of the pitch has come through hardship. Gatti was working on a building site aged 17. Cambiaso, the crosser for his goal, also played in Serie D and overcame an awful knee injury suffered in 2019. McKennie didn’t seem to have a future at the club. He was loaned to Leeds United for the second half of last season, experienced relegation from the Premier League and, initially, didn’t look like he’d be in the squad for Juventus’ pre-season tour this summer.
More generally, the turbulence of last year when the Prisma scandal led Andrea Agnelli and his board to resign and points were deducted, suspended and deducted again forged characters and made this team resilient.
Whether Juventus can go the distance remains to be seen. Their suspension from European football will help in terms of fixture congestion and they won’t lose any of their stars to the African Cup of Nations, which runs for a month from the middle of January.
Allegri is asking the team to stay in the present and not get too far ahead of itself. But the omens are good.
Juventus have laid the foundations to challenge for this title.
Gatti and his team-mates must build on them, brick by brick.
(Top photo: Daniele Badolato – Juventus FC/Getty Images)
Christine Lake is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. With an extensive background in sports journalism, he covers everything from major league championships to grassroots sports events. When she’s not on the field or at the stadium, you’ll find Christine coaching youth sports teams.
