Player Focus: Serie A Waking Up to Andrea Belotti's Talent

Andrea Belotti’s aunt has a chicken factory. Nothing like Los Pollos Hermanos rest assured. As a kid, he would go and visit. “Often I’d stand and stare at the roosters,” he recalled. 

His best friend Yuri was nicknamed the Rooster at school. Belotti started to go by it too. Rather than be put out, Yuri encouraged it. Watching his mate play football he also thought Belotti could invent a celebration out of it by putting his hand to his forehead, the fingers pointing up to the sky in imitation of a rooster’s crest. “Every time I score, I dedicate it to him,” Belotti explained. “It’s the least I could do after stealing his nickname.” 

With a sobriquet like that, it seemed like his destiny to play for Bari, the Galletti or Cockerels. Instead, as a kid from Calcinate, a village outside Bergamo, a more likely outcome would be for Belotti to be spotted by Atalanta and join Mino Favini’s famous academy. “I did a trial but got immediately turned down,” he recalled. “Being Bergamasco it’s a bit of a shame I never played for the Nerazzurro.” 

In hindsight, it’s a remarkable state of affairs. Think about it. Atalanta passed on Belotti. And they let Simone Zaza go too after he entered their youth ranks and made a handful of appearances for the first team. The Orobici could have had Italy’s future strikers playing for them. Earlier this month, Zaza scored on his competitive debut for the national team in a Euro 2016 qualifier away in Norway while Belotti rescued the Under-21s from 2-0 down to Serbia by grabbing a brace to get his team back into the game, equalising and setting them up to go on and seal a precious 3-2 win. 

After being refused by Atalanta, Belotti tried out for and was taken on by nearby Albinoleffe. “They signed me after 10 minutes.” And it wouldn’t be long before he forced his way into the first team either. Belotti made his Serie B debut as a teenager then went down with Albinoleffe and scored 12 goals in 31 games in Italy’s third division. That brought him to the attention of Palermo’s then director of sport Giorgio Perinetti. 

Relegated after their owner Maurizio Zamparini had lost the plot, hiring, firing and re-hiring managers without making anything other than a detrimental impact, their stay in the top flight had ended a year short of a decade. Too good to go down, Palermo, in an effort to bounce straight back, retained much of their squad. Up front, they looked well set to blaze a trail to Serie A. 

There was Abel Hernández, Paulo Dybala - of whom much was expected - his compatriot Franco Vasquez and a new signing who Zamparini would later call “unmanageable” and “a womaniser” - yes, Kyle Lafferty. Space for Belotti seemed limited. But Perinetti had an intuition about him. A loan was organised and he was put at the disposal of Rino Gattuso then Beppe Iachini, the promotion specialist. They started Belotti on the bench. But what Iachini discovered after a few games in charge was that when Palermo needed a goal, there was no one better to turn to than il Gallo. 

He scored seven minutes after coming on in a 1-1 draw with Brescia. Then with Palermo down to 10 men and being held 2-2 in Siena, Belotti entered in the second half and got the winner two minutes from time. In the derby with Trapani, again he didn’t feature from kick-off but came on and hit the clinching goal at the death. He also found the back of the net only 10 minutes after replacing one of his teammates in Pescara and Varese. The kid earned a reputation as a super sub. 

His minutes-per-goal ratio of one every 122.8 minutes was the second best in Serie B among players with 20 or more appearances. He struck 10 times (5 from the bench) in 24 games as Palermo were promoted earlier than any other team in history, posting a record points total. 

In recognition of his performances, Belotti was signed on a permanent basis. Palermo saw their future in him. Lafferty’s sale to Norwich and Hernández’s to Hull were made easier not only by the money involved, but also the knowledge that the Rosanero had a promising forward and potential star to step into their shoes.

Left on the bench at the beginning of the season, the clamour for Belotti to start has grown. After coming on and having what could have been a winning goal harshly disallowed against Inter, he got his chance against Napoli - a club that had expressed an interest in signing him over the summer. Belotti grabbed it with both hands. As was the case against Serbia, his team found itself behind by two goals, but this was no mountain he couldn’t climb. Belotti’s first double for the Under-21s was followed by his first in Serie A as he helped Palermo to a 3-3 draw at San Paolo. Had the woodwork not thwarted him, he would have had a hat-trick. 

Unsurprisingly Belotti was the WhoScored Man of the Match with a player rating of 8.51. The consensus is that he could be to Palermo what Icardi was for Sampdoria the season before last. Belotti is one of those strikers who does the maximum with the minimum. He has taken 32 touches per goal so far. Icardi takes only 21.7. One imagines Belotti will be able to bring that down. His conversion rate of 28.6% is among the best across Europe’s top five leagues of players aged 21 or under, as is his minutes-per-goal ratio of 74. Only Lorient’s Valentin Lavigne [41] and Barcelona’s Sandro Ramirez [48.5] have been more efficient.

It’s a new dawn for Palermo in Serie A. And as it breaks il Gallo, Andrea Belotti, is crowing. Everyone is now waking up to his talent.

What do you make of Belotti's start to the season? Let us know in the comments below