Andrea Colpani: Romantic Football
For calcio advocates, the conversation mainly focuses on a select few players. Kvicha Kvaratshkelia, Rafael Leao and maybe Joshua Zirkzee, for the most part.
In recent months, players like Christian Pulisic, Riccardo Calafiori and Alessandro Buongiorno have become increasingly prominent in Italian football discourse.
It helps that the latter two have hit form this season and are pushing for a place in Luciano Spalletti’s Euro 2024 squad.
But there’s one player currently plying his trade at AC Monza that I don’t feel is talked about enough. No, not Matteo Pessina (who deserves all the plaudits he receives) - it’s his counterpart, Andrea Colpani.
And before Italian football aficionados come at me with their torches and pitchforks saying “Colpani isn’t good enough for the Azzurri this summer!” or “How can you say Colpani is as good as Rafael Leao?!”, that’s not what I’m saying. Colpani deserves credit, and for me, he often goes under the radar when discussing young(er) talent in Serie A.
He has the potential to cause a selection headache in the future.
“I knew that I was on the longlist but I wanted to be certain. I hoped for it, I’m giving my best at Monza,” Colpani said of his first national call up in November.
It was well deserved at the time, following a sequence of top Serie A performances. He’d scored five times and assisted once in 11 games leading up to the call; a return that couldn’t be scoffed at.
Despite this call-up, Colpani is yet to make his debut for the Azzurri, but being included in the squad was good enough recognition for the performances he had been putting in at Monza.
His exclusion from recent friendlies is harsh, and there’s an argument to say the upcoming tournament is too much too soon.
He might not be ready to challenge the established Azzurri players, but he certainly has the potential to cause a selection headache in the future.
The tall, gangly build. The long hair and hairband.
The Brescia-born player was signed to Atalanta’s youth academy as an 8 year old, which is nothing short of impressive at a club with their youth output. He never featured for their first team, and was eventually loaned to Trapani in Serie B.
“Real football is when you leave home, in Trapani I had a year that I’m really proud of,” Colpani said. He was a prominent feature in that team during the 19/20 season, one which actually saw Trapani relegated to Serie C.
Character building, for sure. And upon his return to Atalanta, it was a quick turnaround as he was shipped back out on loan to Monza. After two seasons there, helping them clinch promotion to Serie A, he signed permanently and under Rafaelle Palladino, began to flourish.
Now, I’m no tactician or analyst. One of the main reasons I like Andrea Colpani is because I’m quite the football romantic. The tall, gangly build. The long hair and hairband.
Put this together with his playing style and you can begin to see why he’s been compared to Javier Pastore in the past. But looking at his playing style and Monza’s tactical approach, his influence in Palladino’s system is massive regardless of his stats.
It’d be beautiful to see him at the Maradona, wearing the Neapolitan blue.
He’s often situated as a wide right midfielder in a 3-4-2-1 formation, despite being entirely left-footed. Not only are Colpani’s tactical proficiency and awareness two of his standout features but his technical ability is wonderful, too.
He’s not your typical winger. More of a technical player, with the ability to beat a man, yes, but one that doesn’t rely on pace.
Combine this with his ability to make late runs into the box and break lines when required to do so, you start to realise why his name was being mentioned alongside Jude Bellingham’s at the start of the season.
His momentum has slowed towards the end of this season, but interest from bigger clubs in the league hasn’t dwindled and I suspect his name will be tossed around a lot during the summer market.
Inter, Milan and Juventus have all expressed an interest in the past but it’s hard to know whether they’ll reignite that.
For me? I’d love him at Napoli. It’d be beautiful to see him at the Maradona, wearing the Neapolitan blue. And, depending on who Napoli hire at the end of the season, it’d be a good fit.
“My biggest idol is Totti,” he said when asked about his football inspirations. Gianluigi Buffon, Gennaro Gattuso and even Mario Balotelli were also listed.
Colpani has a high ceiling, for sure, and he’s at a critical stage in his career. A slower second half of the season so far, but with the talent he possesses, there’s a whole heap of potential to fulfil. Whether he stays at Monza or moves, I’ll follow him and keep an eye on his development. You should too.
