Gspurs11
Well-Known Member
- Aug 19, 2012
- 1,949
- 8,674
I wasn't sure if I misheard him but glad you heard it too!
Player Watch: Pierluigi Gollini
- Thread starter THFCSPURS19
- Start date
I wasn't sure if I misheard him but glad you heard it too!
although his actual shot stopping stats aren’t great. Has allowed more goals than xGA each of the last three seasons (vs Hugo, who is like 20 goals less than xGA over the same period. Possible atalanta’s suicidal play style impacts that somewhat but? Regardless, he’s a great deal better than Hart who literally can’t dive left.
ardiles&villa
Well-Known Member
- Jul 14, 2013
- 2,001
- 5,560
Why Phil Collins ?
lukalennon
SC Supporter
- Aug 10, 2010
- 296
- 784
Phill Collins big spurs fan
spids
Well-Known Member
- Jul 19, 2015
- 6,647
- 27,841
Interesting that in his first full interview he has said how fantastic the training complex is, and that his Italian team mates (who recently trained / stayed at the training ground during Euros), said to him "you must go (to join Spurs) - it is amazing".
The facilities we have are a massive draw!
The facilities we have are a massive draw!
spursfan77
Well-Known Member
- Aug 13, 2005
- 46,701
- 105,003
Also probably why it’s hard to get players to leave once they are here!
Romario
Well-Known Member
- Aug 3, 2019
- 1,427
- 10,416
Checkout my previous post on this lad. He is very,very good and would have been a huge success at Villa but for the sacking of DiMatteo and his goalkeeping coach which heralded the arrival of Steve Bruce who then used his Man Utd connections to bring in Sam Johnstone. The guy felt rejected and out of future plans so went on loan to Atalanta. The deal was made permanent in 2018.
Now he is joining a club that is undergoing a massive transformation and being understudy to Hugo Lloris with one season to prove he is worthy of replacing our World Cup winning captain. It is a staggering opportunity for him and I am very confident we have acquired a top quality goalkeeper for many seasons to come.
CrazyKen
Well-Known Member
- May 19, 2006
- 534
- 1,066
Nah. As a professional photographer, I got to say this is not his problem, but the photographer. Everything look amateurish
But so do most of the Clubs pictures and videos. Makes me mad!!
walworthyid
David Ginola
- Oct 25, 2004
- 7,059
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Signed! Where is the stamp?
- Jun 5, 2004
- 32,221
- 64,290
- Staff
- #314
carmeldevil
Well-Known Member
- May 15, 2018
- 7,701
- 46,241
Apologies for the formatting
Charlie Eccleshare and more Jul 24, 2021
Dancing at a Justin Bieber concert in Birmingham with Jack Grealish, recording his own rap single, and saving a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty — Tottenham’s new goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini will not be short of a story or two when he’s introduced to his team-mates.
And they’ll probably have a sense pretty quickly that Gollini, once of Manchester United and Aston Villa, is in the building.
At 6ft 4in tall with currently peroxide blond hair and a penchant for eye-catching clothes, the Italian is not someone it is easy to ignore.
Take the footage of Gollini after he had completed his medical on Wednesday for instance, when he sauntered through the streets of Milan wearing gold shorts, a gold chain with 95, the year of his birth and consequently his shirt number at now former Atalanta, on the end of it, and retro sunglasses with a blue crossbody bag slung over his chest.
As for his introductory song at Spurs, Gollini is unlikely to be too nervous given that he has already recorded his own rap single “Rapper coi guanti” (Rapper with gloves), which made it into the top 100 of the Italian chart and has more than a million views on YouTube. Gollini certainly doesn’t lack confidence, and now has his sights set on Hugo Lloris’s No 1 spot.
When at Villa from 2016-18, it was felt Gollini was too preoccupied with enjoying the lifestyle of a footballer. Now he has matured, and frames his interest in the world outside of his profession differently. “I love diversity,” he said in 2019. “If someone doesn’t want to discover new things that are different from what they already know, I think that’s very limiting.”
Gollini’s curiosity for different experiences has taken him from his native Italy to Manchester United in his mid-teens, then to Villa when only 21, and now back to England with Spurs as a 26-year-old. He leaves Atalanta as a full Italy international who has played in the Champions League’s knockout phase in each of the last two campaigns. But having fallen out with manager Gian Piero Gasperini after being dropped in February, he knew his time was up when Atalanta signed Juan Musso earlier this month from Udinese to be this season’s No 1.
At which point, enter Tottenham…
Spurs have actually held an interest in Gollini for some time, dating back to the spring of last year when Jose Mourinho was in charge. And soon after Fabio Paratici was appointed managing director of football last month, he got in touch with Atalanta to see if a deal could be struck. Paratici knew the player well from his time at Juventus and is on good terms with his agent. Paratici, The Athletic understands, also explored the possibility of signing David Raya from Premier League newcomers Brentford, but he was prohibitively expensive.
The deal for Gollini (more on which can be found here) is far more affordable — an initial season-long loan was confirmed on Saturday, with the option to buy for €15 million (£12.9 million) and obligation to do so should he make 20 appearances while on loan.
The “polar opposite” to Tottenham’s long-time first-choice and captain Hugo Lloris according to one former goalkeeper, Gollini has a big presence in goal but lacks the shot-stopping ability of the World Cup-winning France skipper. Lloris is expected to remain as No 1 this season, and will discuss his future with the club’s hierarchy when he returns from holiday in the next couple of weeks. His contract expires in the summer of 2022 and he turns 35 in December, so Gollini looks like a pretty low-risk option. If he does well , the loanee will join permanently at the end of the season; if he doesn’t, Spurs will say thank you and good luck.
And while many Tottenham fans will feel there are bigger issues that need resolving with their team than goalkeeper — there is a slight sense of upgrading your TV when the ceiling is caving in — having a proper succession plan for Lloris is long overdue.
So, what should we expect from Gollini?
A thoughtful character who in Italy was always the subject of media attention for his high-profile relationship with pop star Giulia Provvedi (he was apparently left heartbroken when they broke up last year), Gollini is certainly not faultless as a goalkeeper but has the experience and personality to become the No 1 at a club Tottenham’s size.
This is the kind of goalkeeper and person Spurs are signing….
Born in Bologna, Gollini was originally a centre-back in the academy at SPAL, a club in nearby Ferrara, before switching to goalkeeper and joining Florence side Fiorentina.
There, he developed a reputation as one of the most exciting goalkeepers in Italy and, at age 16, he was poached by Manchester United in 2012. United had, and have, a history of signing up young Italians — among them Kiko Macheda, Giuseppe Rossi and Luca Ercolani, who left earlier this year — and they took a chance on a teenage Gollini. For him it was a huge move for someone so young, but one he found impossible to resist.
“There’s always a time when you have to try something new,” Gollini told Cronache di Spogliatoio in December 2019. “For me, England was completely different. The language, the culture, the food. I’m a curious guy and have an open mind. I’m like, ‘Alright then, let’s go have a look’. I went from boarding in Florence to living on my own in Manchester with people from different countries. You learn to get on with anyone.”
Gollini’s two years in Manchester were challenging but formative. He was extremely young, barely spoke the language initially and lived on a bad diet of microwaved meals. It wasn’t the ideal environment for a rookie goalkeeper to thrive, even if he remembers with awe receiving advice from legendary players such as Ryan Giggs and Rio Ferdinand. He even got to train with the first team and David de Gea, but later revealed he felt constrained by how strictly the club was run.
“There is a kind of military regime with absurd rules,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport in 2018. “In winter, hats, gloves, knitwear, sleeves and long trousers are forbidden.
“Also forbidden were tattoos and social media profiles. But that experience helped me, I became a man before time.”
Gollini learned a lot while at United, and singles out Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard and Michael Keane as among the club’s top youngsters at that time. And then there was Ravel Morrison — England’s eternal enfant terrible who is currently training with Derby County: “They wanted to get rid of Morrison but (manager Alex) Ferguson loved him. In the first training session I saw, he scored with a rabona.”
That time in the north west of England also furthered his education in rap music. “I got to know even more about rap,” he said two years ago. “From a musical point of view, going to Manchester was great. There were loads of African and South American players who helped me discover new things. Rap has come on a lot in Italy too.”
He was offered a contract extension in 2014, but decided it made sense to return to Italy. He joined Verona and, under the tutelage of goalkeeping coach Gaetano Petrelli, was given “a grounding in the fundamentals that I didn’t have before”.
Gollini made his Serie A debut aged 19 in 2014 and became Verona’s No 1 the following season. His impressive performances caught the attention of Villa, who signed him in the summer of 2016, when they were managed by compatriot Roberto Di Matteo (with another Italian Massimo Battara the goalkeeping coach at the time). Villa’s then-owner Tony Xia claimed hyperbolically when Gollini was signed that he “has the ability to emulate (Gianluigi) Buffon in the future”.
He was still only 21 at this point, but carried himself like a seasoned veteran and impressed the club’s staff upon his arrival with his intelligence and thoughtfulness. It’s worth reading this interview with The Athletic’s Gregg Evans, just after he had joined Villa five years ago, to get a sense of his eloquence even then.
Off the pitch, Gollini was a popular member of the dressing room, and hit it off in particular with Grealish. The pair even went to a Justin Bieber gig together, which as well as conjuring up an amazing image is a reminder of how young Gollini still was at this time.
These sort of capers also played into a sense among some at the Birmingham club that Gollini was more concerned about the lifestyle of a footballer — the partying, the clothes — rather than the daily grind goalkeepers need to go through.
Some of his colleagues at Villa at that time remember that, although not actually late for training, Gollini tended to arrive at the last minute. This jarred at a club where the goalkeepers were often the first ones in, and it was felt that he didn’t want to stick around after training and go through extra drills but was happy doing the bare minimum. It’s also been suggested he didn’t react especially well to criticism and thought he was being singled out for Villa’s struggles. As a former Manchester United player who had been linked with Juventus, some felt he believed he was better than being at what was then a mid-table second division club.
Fundamentally though, his time at Villa was defined by errors on the pitch — starting with a poor clearance which was intercepted on the opening day of the 2016-17 season. Villa lost 1-0 to Sheffield Wednesday because of it, and after a few more mistakes Di Matteo was sacked just 11 matches into the Championship season. Villa had won only once and there was the 21-year-old Gollini, desperately low on confidence, out of form and in a struggling team with the manager who’d signed him now sacked.
Di Matteo was replaced by Steve Bruce, who brought with him a new goalkeeping coach in Gary Walsh.
They quickly decided Gollini wasn’t for them and in January agreed a loan deal for Manchester United prospect Sam Johnstone, who straight away became first choice.
And just like that, Gollini’s time at Villa was pretty much up. He joined Atalanta that same January on an 18-month loan, before making the deal permanent in the summer of 2018.
Gollini realised he needed to knuckle down following the Villa disappointment and, after a couple of years’ toil, became Atalanta’s No 1 in the 2018-19 season. It was also during this period that he recorded his one and so far only rap single, which he insists was not a distraction from his football.
“I wrote it because I wanted to tell my story,” Gollini said in 2019 of the song he recorded under the pseudonym Gollorius and from which all proceeds went to charity. “The pretext for it was to do-up the football pitch I grew up playing on. When I recorded it, it was the right time for me and the team. If you make a song, it doesn’t mean your mind’s not on football. Absolutely not.”
Rap is a big genre in Italy, and while Gollorius did not receive a great deal of praise, he was not panned for it either. As for his own influences, Gollini cites: “Biggie. I’ve seen his documentary. He’s the wallpaper on my phone.
“And Shiva and Vegas Jones. I listen to US rap, but particularly Italian stuff. I’m all about old-school rap.”
Gollini’s relationship with Provvedi, half of the hugely well-known Italian pop duo Donatella, which was spawned from that country’s version of The X Factor and who have almost 1.5 million Instagram followers, added to the goalkeeper’s crossover appeal.
But we shouldn’t lose sight of just how good Gollini was at times at Atalanta. Especially in the 2019-20 season when he was a key factor in Gasperini’s thrilling side reaching the Champions League quarter-final.
It’s fair to say that particular team was not always defensively solid and did concede quite a few goals, but that was generally more to do with the way they were set up than any particular fault of Gollini. Italy manager Roberto Mancini was sufficiently impressed to hand him an international debut in a European Championship qualifier against Bosnia-Herzegovina in November 2019.
Had the Euros taken place last year as originally scheduled, Gollini would likely have been in the Italy squad. Instead, by this summer, he could feel a touch unlucky to have lost his place to Alex Meret.
That he did was a result of mixed form last season, when he was dropped by Gasperini in February — leading to a falling-out between the two. The fiery Gasperini, it should be said, is someone who has arguments with lots of his players, and on this particular occasion, Gollini was angry he wasn’t allowed to play his way through a difficult spell.
He subsequently reclaimed his place and played 11 of Atalanta’s last 12 games of the season as they finished a respectable third in Serie A. But in spite of that and some big moments last season, such as saving a penalty from Cristiano Ronaldo, it was clearly time for a change once Musso was signed a few weeks ago.
The big question surrounding Gollini’s move to Tottenham is whether he will take Lloris’s place this season.
To get a better understanding of the new man’s relative strengths and weaknesses, we consulted The Athletic’s resident goalkeeping expert and former professional keeper Matt Pyzdrowski.
Having studied Gollini in action, Pyzdrowski’s view was that Spurs’ new signing would be an upgrade on Lloris when it came to claiming crosses and playing higher up the pitch but that he could be vulnerable in one-on-one situations and from long shots, and is not at the Frenchman’s level when it comes to shot-stopping.
“Gollini and Lloris are polar opposites,” Pyzdrowski explains. “Because, yes, Lloris can rush off his line but he’s actually quite conservative and likes to stick to his line whereas Gollini is much more aggressive.
“He’s super-aggressive in crossing situations, which is good. He does punch a lot and doesn’t hold so much — in contrast to Lloris, who has some of the best hands in the Premier League. But one of the critiques of Lloris is he’s not great in the air and in England you need that, and so that is one area where Gollini could be superior to Lloris (the numbers from Statsbomb via fbref back this up).
“Gollini’s best assets are his size, ability to claim crosses and, definitely when he’s closer to his line, his reflexes. On balls in and around his body he’s very strong, and getting down to the ball — even though he’s big, he’s very quick.”
“When he’s one-v-one and very close to someone, he’s good because he has strong reflexes. If there’s a bit more space and time, that’s when his decision-making is flawed at times and his technique needs some work. But that’s partly to do with how Atalanta played — with a high line where Gollini had to be aggressive. I think Spurs will be a bit more defensive and that could help him.
“And we’ve seen how many goalkeepers move clubs and can be rejuvenated. So for him, it could be good to have something new.”
But his weaknesses of going to ground early in one-v-one situations and at dealing with shots from range do concern Pyzdrowski.
“In one-v-ones, Gollini’s aggression can be to his benefit,” he says. “But it can also hurt him because he rushes out and seems like he’s trying to close the angle, which is good, but I don’t really like his technique because he often goes with his feet, rather than sliding in with his hands.
“Particularly when you’re wide of the goal, that’s when you can get into trouble — when you’re wide of the goal, you actually just want to keep your frame big and block the goal. Whereas he comes out and spreads but goes to ground very quickly and therefore exposes a lot of the goal in moments when it’s crucial to stay big and keep your chest square to the ball.
“The other thing I want to note is long-range shots can really be a problem for him. Largely that comes down to positioning and footwork. He is big at 6ft 4in, which is another contrast to (6ft 2in) Lloris, who is smaller for a keeper but whose positioning and footwork are two of his best assets and allow him to pull off those crazy saves.
“Gollini’s issues are typical of a bigger goalkeeper, many of whom think you can be a bit further off your line, take more chances, because you have a natural reach that other keepers don’t have, and maybe trust your height more than you should at times. Sometimes Gollini gets his feet caught underneath himself and doesn’t necessarily get the best push on to the ball.
“Also, partly because he plays further off his line, he’s trying to make an impact with the ball on his dives when he is between four to six yards off his line, which is quite a big distance, instead of maybe being a bit closer to his line, like Lloris likes to do. There, you give yourself more time to react, especially when dealing with curling shots because that four to six yards off your line the ball will go around you whereas if you’re closer to your line you can meet it as it comes back towards the goal.
“I think he can come in and challenge Lloris, but I don’t think he’ll replace him.”
It’s worth remembering as well that Lloris was very solid last season, despite taking a lot of criticism in recent years. If he is to be usurped, Gollini will have to earn the spot — something he feels well capable of doing.
And for someone who has always felt most comfortable in the limelight, Gollini has the chance to really make a name for himself at Spurs.
(Additional reporting: James Horncastle & Gregg Evans)
Dancing at a Justin Bieber concert in Birmingham with Jack Grealish, recording his own rap single, and saving a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty — Tottenham’s new goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini will not be short of a story or two when he’s introduced to his team-mates.
And they’ll probably have a sense pretty quickly that Gollini, once of Manchester United and Aston Villa, is in the building.
At 6ft 4in tall with currently peroxide blond hair and a penchant for eye-catching clothes, the Italian is not someone it is easy to ignore.
Take the footage of Gollini after he had completed his medical on Wednesday for instance, when he sauntered through the streets of Milan wearing gold shorts, a gold chain with 95, the year of his birth and consequently his shirt number at now former Atalanta, on the end of it, and retro sunglasses with a blue crossbody bag slung over his chest.
As for his introductory song at Spurs, Gollini is unlikely to be too nervous given that he has already recorded his own rap single “Rapper coi guanti” (Rapper with gloves), which made it into the top 100 of the Italian chart and has more than a million views on YouTube. Gollini certainly doesn’t lack confidence, and now has his sights set on Hugo Lloris’s No 1 spot.
When at Villa from 2016-18, it was felt Gollini was too preoccupied with enjoying the lifestyle of a footballer. Now he has matured, and frames his interest in the world outside of his profession differently. “I love diversity,” he said in 2019. “If someone doesn’t want to discover new things that are different from what they already know, I think that’s very limiting.”
Gollini’s curiosity for different experiences has taken him from his native Italy to Manchester United in his mid-teens, then to Villa when only 21, and now back to England with Spurs as a 26-year-old. He leaves Atalanta as a full Italy international who has played in the Champions League’s knockout phase in each of the last two campaigns. But having fallen out with manager Gian Piero Gasperini after being dropped in February, he knew his time was up when Atalanta signed Juan Musso earlier this month from Udinese to be this season’s No 1.
At which point, enter Tottenham…
Spurs have actually held an interest in Gollini for some time, dating back to the spring of last year when Jose Mourinho was in charge. And soon after Fabio Paratici was appointed managing director of football last month, he got in touch with Atalanta to see if a deal could be struck. Paratici knew the player well from his time at Juventus and is on good terms with his agent. Paratici, The Athletic understands, also explored the possibility of signing David Raya from Premier League newcomers Brentford, but he was prohibitively expensive.
The deal for Gollini (more on which can be found here) is far more affordable — an initial season-long loan was confirmed on Saturday, with the option to buy for €15 million (£12.9 million) and obligation to do so should he make 20 appearances while on loan.
The “polar opposite” to Tottenham’s long-time first-choice and captain Hugo Lloris according to one former goalkeeper, Gollini has a big presence in goal but lacks the shot-stopping ability of the World Cup-winning France skipper. Lloris is expected to remain as No 1 this season, and will discuss his future with the club’s hierarchy when he returns from holiday in the next couple of weeks. His contract expires in the summer of 2022 and he turns 35 in December, so Gollini looks like a pretty low-risk option. If he does well , the loanee will join permanently at the end of the season; if he doesn’t, Spurs will say thank you and good luck.
And while many Tottenham fans will feel there are bigger issues that need resolving with their team than goalkeeper — there is a slight sense of upgrading your TV when the ceiling is caving in — having a proper succession plan for Lloris is long overdue.
So, what should we expect from Gollini?
A thoughtful character who in Italy was always the subject of media attention for his high-profile relationship with pop star Giulia Provvedi (he was apparently left heartbroken when they broke up last year), Gollini is certainly not faultless as a goalkeeper but has the experience and personality to become the No 1 at a club Tottenham’s size.
This is the kind of goalkeeper and person Spurs are signing….
Born in Bologna, Gollini was originally a centre-back in the academy at SPAL, a club in nearby Ferrara, before switching to goalkeeper and joining Florence side Fiorentina.
There, he developed a reputation as one of the most exciting goalkeepers in Italy and, at age 16, he was poached by Manchester United in 2012. United had, and have, a history of signing up young Italians — among them Kiko Macheda, Giuseppe Rossi and Luca Ercolani, who left earlier this year — and they took a chance on a teenage Gollini. For him it was a huge move for someone so young, but one he found impossible to resist.
“There’s always a time when you have to try something new,” Gollini told Cronache di Spogliatoio in December 2019. “For me, England was completely different. The language, the culture, the food. I’m a curious guy and have an open mind. I’m like, ‘Alright then, let’s go have a look’. I went from boarding in Florence to living on my own in Manchester with people from different countries. You learn to get on with anyone.”
Gollini’s two years in Manchester were challenging but formative. He was extremely young, barely spoke the language initially and lived on a bad diet of microwaved meals. It wasn’t the ideal environment for a rookie goalkeeper to thrive, even if he remembers with awe receiving advice from legendary players such as Ryan Giggs and Rio Ferdinand. He even got to train with the first team and David de Gea, but later revealed he felt constrained by how strictly the club was run.
“There is a kind of military regime with absurd rules,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport in 2018. “In winter, hats, gloves, knitwear, sleeves and long trousers are forbidden.
“Also forbidden were tattoos and social media profiles. But that experience helped me, I became a man before time.”
Gollini learned a lot while at United, and singles out Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard and Michael Keane as among the club’s top youngsters at that time. And then there was Ravel Morrison — England’s eternal enfant terrible who is currently training with Derby County: “They wanted to get rid of Morrison but (manager Alex) Ferguson loved him. In the first training session I saw, he scored with a rabona.”
That time in the north west of England also furthered his education in rap music. “I got to know even more about rap,” he said two years ago. “From a musical point of view, going to Manchester was great. There were loads of African and South American players who helped me discover new things. Rap has come on a lot in Italy too.”
He was offered a contract extension in 2014, but decided it made sense to return to Italy. He joined Verona and, under the tutelage of goalkeeping coach Gaetano Petrelli, was given “a grounding in the fundamentals that I didn’t have before”.
Gollini made his Serie A debut aged 19 in 2014 and became Verona’s No 1 the following season. His impressive performances caught the attention of Villa, who signed him in the summer of 2016, when they were managed by compatriot Roberto Di Matteo (with another Italian Massimo Battara the goalkeeping coach at the time). Villa’s then-owner Tony Xia claimed hyperbolically when Gollini was signed that he “has the ability to emulate (Gianluigi) Buffon in the future”.
He was still only 21 at this point, but carried himself like a seasoned veteran and impressed the club’s staff upon his arrival with his intelligence and thoughtfulness. It’s worth reading this interview with The Athletic’s Gregg Evans, just after he had joined Villa five years ago, to get a sense of his eloquence even then.
Off the pitch, Gollini was a popular member of the dressing room, and hit it off in particular with Grealish. The pair even went to a Justin Bieber gig together, which as well as conjuring up an amazing image is a reminder of how young Gollini still was at this time.
These sort of capers also played into a sense among some at the Birmingham club that Gollini was more concerned about the lifestyle of a footballer — the partying, the clothes — rather than the daily grind goalkeepers need to go through.
Some of his colleagues at Villa at that time remember that, although not actually late for training, Gollini tended to arrive at the last minute. This jarred at a club where the goalkeepers were often the first ones in, and it was felt that he didn’t want to stick around after training and go through extra drills but was happy doing the bare minimum. It’s also been suggested he didn’t react especially well to criticism and thought he was being singled out for Villa’s struggles. As a former Manchester United player who had been linked with Juventus, some felt he believed he was better than being at what was then a mid-table second division club.
Fundamentally though, his time at Villa was defined by errors on the pitch — starting with a poor clearance which was intercepted on the opening day of the 2016-17 season. Villa lost 1-0 to Sheffield Wednesday because of it, and after a few more mistakes Di Matteo was sacked just 11 matches into the Championship season. Villa had won only once and there was the 21-year-old Gollini, desperately low on confidence, out of form and in a struggling team with the manager who’d signed him now sacked.
Di Matteo was replaced by Steve Bruce, who brought with him a new goalkeeping coach in Gary Walsh.
They quickly decided Gollini wasn’t for them and in January agreed a loan deal for Manchester United prospect Sam Johnstone, who straight away became first choice.
And just like that, Gollini’s time at Villa was pretty much up. He joined Atalanta that same January on an 18-month loan, before making the deal permanent in the summer of 2018.
Gollini realised he needed to knuckle down following the Villa disappointment and, after a couple of years’ toil, became Atalanta’s No 1 in the 2018-19 season. It was also during this period that he recorded his one and so far only rap single, which he insists was not a distraction from his football.
“I wrote it because I wanted to tell my story,” Gollini said in 2019 of the song he recorded under the pseudonym Gollorius and from which all proceeds went to charity. “The pretext for it was to do-up the football pitch I grew up playing on. When I recorded it, it was the right time for me and the team. If you make a song, it doesn’t mean your mind’s not on football. Absolutely not.”
Rap is a big genre in Italy, and while Gollorius did not receive a great deal of praise, he was not panned for it either. As for his own influences, Gollini cites: “Biggie. I’ve seen his documentary. He’s the wallpaper on my phone.
“And Shiva and Vegas Jones. I listen to US rap, but particularly Italian stuff. I’m all about old-school rap.”
Gollini’s relationship with Provvedi, half of the hugely well-known Italian pop duo Donatella, which was spawned from that country’s version of The X Factor and who have almost 1.5 million Instagram followers, added to the goalkeeper’s crossover appeal.
But we shouldn’t lose sight of just how good Gollini was at times at Atalanta. Especially in the 2019-20 season when he was a key factor in Gasperini’s thrilling side reaching the Champions League quarter-final.
It’s fair to say that particular team was not always defensively solid and did concede quite a few goals, but that was generally more to do with the way they were set up than any particular fault of Gollini. Italy manager Roberto Mancini was sufficiently impressed to hand him an international debut in a European Championship qualifier against Bosnia-Herzegovina in November 2019.
Had the Euros taken place last year as originally scheduled, Gollini would likely have been in the Italy squad. Instead, by this summer, he could feel a touch unlucky to have lost his place to Alex Meret.
That he did was a result of mixed form last season, when he was dropped by Gasperini in February — leading to a falling-out between the two. The fiery Gasperini, it should be said, is someone who has arguments with lots of his players, and on this particular occasion, Gollini was angry he wasn’t allowed to play his way through a difficult spell.
He subsequently reclaimed his place and played 11 of Atalanta’s last 12 games of the season as they finished a respectable third in Serie A. But in spite of that and some big moments last season, such as saving a penalty from Cristiano Ronaldo, it was clearly time for a change once Musso was signed a few weeks ago.
The big question surrounding Gollini’s move to Tottenham is whether he will take Lloris’s place this season.
To get a better understanding of the new man’s relative strengths and weaknesses, we consulted The Athletic’s resident goalkeeping expert and former professional keeper Matt Pyzdrowski.
Having studied Gollini in action, Pyzdrowski’s view was that Spurs’ new signing would be an upgrade on Lloris when it came to claiming crosses and playing higher up the pitch but that he could be vulnerable in one-on-one situations and from long shots, and is not at the Frenchman’s level when it comes to shot-stopping.
“Gollini and Lloris are polar opposites,” Pyzdrowski explains. “Because, yes, Lloris can rush off his line but he’s actually quite conservative and likes to stick to his line whereas Gollini is much more aggressive.
“He’s super-aggressive in crossing situations, which is good. He does punch a lot and doesn’t hold so much — in contrast to Lloris, who has some of the best hands in the Premier League. But one of the critiques of Lloris is he’s not great in the air and in England you need that, and so that is one area where Gollini could be superior to Lloris (the numbers from Statsbomb via fbref back this up).
“Gollini’s best assets are his size, ability to claim crosses and, definitely when he’s closer to his line, his reflexes. On balls in and around his body he’s very strong, and getting down to the ball — even though he’s big, he’s very quick.”
“When he’s one-v-one and very close to someone, he’s good because he has strong reflexes. If there’s a bit more space and time, that’s when his decision-making is flawed at times and his technique needs some work. But that’s partly to do with how Atalanta played — with a high line where Gollini had to be aggressive. I think Spurs will be a bit more defensive and that could help him.
“And we’ve seen how many goalkeepers move clubs and can be rejuvenated. So for him, it could be good to have something new.”
But his weaknesses of going to ground early in one-v-one situations and at dealing with shots from range do concern Pyzdrowski.
“In one-v-ones, Gollini’s aggression can be to his benefit,” he says. “But it can also hurt him because he rushes out and seems like he’s trying to close the angle, which is good, but I don’t really like his technique because he often goes with his feet, rather than sliding in with his hands.
“Particularly when you’re wide of the goal, that’s when you can get into trouble — when you’re wide of the goal, you actually just want to keep your frame big and block the goal. Whereas he comes out and spreads but goes to ground very quickly and therefore exposes a lot of the goal in moments when it’s crucial to stay big and keep your chest square to the ball.
“The other thing I want to note is long-range shots can really be a problem for him. Largely that comes down to positioning and footwork. He is big at 6ft 4in, which is another contrast to (6ft 2in) Lloris, who is smaller for a keeper but whose positioning and footwork are two of his best assets and allow him to pull off those crazy saves.
“Gollini’s issues are typical of a bigger goalkeeper, many of whom think you can be a bit further off your line, take more chances, because you have a natural reach that other keepers don’t have, and maybe trust your height more than you should at times. Sometimes Gollini gets his feet caught underneath himself and doesn’t necessarily get the best push on to the ball.
“Also, partly because he plays further off his line, he’s trying to make an impact with the ball on his dives when he is between four to six yards off his line, which is quite a big distance, instead of maybe being a bit closer to his line, like Lloris likes to do. There, you give yourself more time to react, especially when dealing with curling shots because that four to six yards off your line the ball will go around you whereas if you’re closer to your line you can meet it as it comes back towards the goal.
“I think he can come in and challenge Lloris, but I don’t think he’ll replace him.”
It’s worth remembering as well that Lloris was very solid last season, despite taking a lot of criticism in recent years. If he is to be usurped, Gollini will have to earn the spot — something he feels well capable of doing.
And for someone who has always felt most comfortable in the limelight, Gollini has the chance to really make a name for himself at Spurs.
(Additional reporting: James Horncastle & Gregg Evans)
sausage
?
- May 17, 2018
- 11,872
- 47,993
I'm pretty sure FM will determine if a player is HG from their player history data. Thus, it's not based on reality, and only as accurate as their data.
I've found this article since, which relates to United poaching him from Fiorentina (June 30, 2011):
Fiorentina attack Manchester United for 'luring' teenage goalkeeper
Fiorentina's sporting director has attacked Manchester United for 'luring' their Italy under-17 goalkeeper to Old Traffordwww.theguardian.com
Transfermarkt has the actual date of the 'transfer' as March 19, 2012.
Gollini was born March 18, 1995 - so the above date represents the day after his 17th birthday. The question is, did Gollini register for United's youth team for "three entire seasons, or 36 months, before his 21st birthday", as it may still have been a partial first season - in which case, he's not HG. I don't know how the 'official' aspect of that works
I'm not sure if we're going to know the answer to the HG status unless he signs for us (or another PL club) and has the little asterisk next to his name on the PL list.
Further follow up.
The PL site marks a HG player with a little 'HG' emblem, e.g.
Gollini doesn't have it.
Pierluigi Gollini Napoli Goalkeeper, Profile & Stats | Premier League
View the player profile of Napoli Goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini, including statistics and photos, on the official website of the Premier League.
www.premierleague.com
(could be that they're yet to update it, but I suspect it confirms as originally said. Sorry FM boys)
easley91
Well-Known Member
- Jan 27, 2011
- 19,217
- 55,097
I'll wait until squad is registered after the window and he has a photo/squad number before taking that as confirming it.Further follow up.
The PL site marks a HG player with a little 'HG' emblem, e.g.
View attachment 92730
Gollini doesn't have it.
View attachment 92731
Pierluigi Gollini Napoli Goalkeeper, Profile & Stats | Premier League
View the player profile of Napoli Goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini, including statistics and photos, on the official website of the Premier League.
(could be that they're yet to update it, but I suspect it confirms as originally said. Sorry FM boys)
ZiggySpurs
Ziggy Spursdust was a missed opportunity
- Dec 28, 2020
- 1,576
- 9,821
Just saw this comment on Reddit that made me chuckle:
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