Lorenzo Lucca: Big man, big ambitions
I’ve always been a fan of football’s secretive approach and its reluctance to let us peek behind the curtain, but I’d have paid good money to see inside the Udinese dressing room at Via del Mare on Friday night.
Several Udinese players had been at each others’ throats inside the Lecce penalty area after winning a penalty in the 32nd minute. All because Lorenzo Lucca had picked the ball up and pulled rank on designated penalty taker Florian Thauvin, who is also club captain. Here’s the scene where Lucca defied his entire team:
This is football heritage, a pixelated Renaissance painting. There stands Lucca like that one kid who had to go in for dinner and bring his ball home with him. You’ve got Jaka Bijol screaming at him in what I’ll assume is a mixture of the somewhat similar Friulian dialect and Slovenian, while captain Thauvin offers his own comedic take on the Gallic shrug. And don’t get me started on that bloody frog meme crypto sponsor nonsense.
Lucca won the argument, one which raged on for a whole minute. And to be fair to the big lad, he slotted the penalty magnificently. The commentators would have been frothing at the mouth in hope of some ‘narrative’ upon which to frame the entire game, had he missed.
He didn’t, however, and it left me thinking the end justified the means in Lucca’s insubordination. Udinese coach Kosta Runjaic didn’t share my sentiment and clearly picked up on his players’ refusal to celebrate Lucca’s goal, subbing him off for Iker Bravo four minutes later.
Udinese held on to win 1-0, creating no real quality chances in the second half and proving Lucca’s intervention to be a match winning one. That’s ten league goals for him in 2024/25, four more than any other Udinese player as they make up for almost being relegated last year with a strong campaign, currently sitting 10th.
Lucca recently gave an interview to Gazzetta dello Sport’s weekly magazine Sportweek, in which he said:
“I’m aiming to be a starter in the national team. I’m convinced that I can do great things, but in my role I see a lot of competition, like Scamacca and Retegui, two very strong strikers who, compared to me, play in a top club like Atalanta. At the moment they are ahead of me, but I think it is just a matter of time and hard work. Soon I’ll be in [a top team] too.”
That last line might have played a role in his teammates’ anger and refusal to celebrate with him. Perhaps the manager is at his wit’s end and there’s more to it behind the scenes than we’ll ever know. After all, we might be waiting a while before Amazon’s All or Nothing make an Udinese documentary.
Lucca’s trajectory has been an interesting one. I’ve been following him since he signed for Pisa, back when he was just a 6ft7ins Football Manager goal machine in 2021/22. He started that season magnificently in the real world, scoring six times in the first seven games before going the rest of the season without a single goal.
Ajax took him on loan in 2022/23 and gave him a handful of minutes, but sent him back to Pisa the following summer. Udinese took a punt with another loan, this time with an option to buy. 2023/24 was a formative year for Lucca, scoring nine times and securing a permanent Serie A move. He’s kicked on this year and been called up to the Italy squad, hence the comment about moving to a ‘top club’.
It’s not the most professional approach, but that’s football. He’s a young, confident striker stealing the ball off a World Cup winner who has already missed two penalties against Bologna and Napoli this season! Move over, old man, the future is now. Or something like that.
It’s not a ridiculous idea for your starting centre-forward and top goalscorer to take a penalty, regardless of hierarchy. Lucca was obviously wrong to approach it in the manner he did but the more I watch the clip, I find myself siding with him in this argument.
His teammates spent a minute arguing with him, rather than having a quiet word and accepting the decision for the sake of squad unity. The TV cameras are always rolling, so maybe the dressing room was the best place to debate with Lucca.
Thauvin’s behaviour isn’t befitting of a captain and Bijol plays the bad cop role rather well, if a little over the top. The picture of the Udinese players celebrating their win doesn’t bode well for squad harmony either:
You can see Lucca in the back row, looking rather nonplussed. Stunned, even. There's no hiding from it, either, because he's massive.
Runjaic hasn’t helped by substituting him almost immediately, an old school flexing of authority in a time when player power has never been higher. In the same week that Gian Piero Gasperini bizarrely blamed Atalanta’s 3-1 Champions League defeat to Club Brugge on Ademola Lookman’s missed penalty, Runjaic might have sealed Lucca’s summer fate. A move elsewhere, please.
Gasperini took something of a media battering this week for his moaning, while Runjaic assured that both he and Lucca would find themselves discussed in print and on screen until something more interesting happens with one of the big clubs his striker might look to leave for.
Does one and a half respectable Serie A seasons warrant Lucca to speculate publicly on his future and steal a penalty off his captain? Probably not. But this is professional football, where teams must win at all costs. And Lucca won, both by proving himself right to his teammates and in giving his manager three valuable away points.
Perhaps it’s a Pyrrhic victory for both sides. Udinese have almost certainly alienated their own player and Lucca’s given himself an awkward three months in the dressing room, unless everyone can make up and live happily ever after. Which they should. Cheer up, Udinese. You won! He was right! Sort of, but not really.