Life must not always be easy at 21 for an up-and-coming football star like Nicoló Zaniolo, especially when luck doesn’t seem to be on your side and keeps making you prone to injury. The Roma winger suffered a complete tear to the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee during Monday’s Nations League match between the Azzurri and the Netherlands.
That means that the 21-year-old will need to stay out of the pitch for at least six months and, what’s worse, this is not the first time. Zaniolo had just recovered from a similar injury to his right knee that kept him at bay since January 2020 until the post-COVID restart of the Serie A.
Zaniolo appeared silent and gloomy this morning as he left the Roman Clinic Villa Stuart, where MRI scans confirmed the unfortunate injury verdict of his collision with Netherlands’ Donny Van den Beek. He had been able to leave the pitch on his own legs, but the painful look on his face suggested that something was wrong.
There must be a lot going on in his mind now. How will a youngster who, at the end of the day, just became old enough to acquire full voting rights react to yet another hard blow from fate?
Billed as the Next Big Thing and as the future hope of Italian football, Zaniolo has been burdened with an enormous pressure since his very inception in the calcio world. He had to take decisions whose nature is far from those that most of his young adult peers are used to face.
He left his native Massa and his family very young – a very supportive family, it needs to be said, consisting of former Serie A player Igor Zaniolo and mum Francesca Costa – to follow his footballing dream across all Italy, until landing into Inter’s youth academy. The Nerazzurri sold him to Roma in 2018 as part of a deal that brought Radja Nainggolan to Milano – a move that the Suning club must surely be regretting.
The young Nicoló had to show much maturity as he flipped from one place to another, always accompanied by his “meant-to-succeed” tag. He did show some as he managed to keep his private life in balance.
A life where the presence of his mum is constant but tricky to deal with at times, as Mrs. Costa is young, attractive, and has a very active social media life. That didn’t take long to grab the attention of the Italian mediasphere meat grinder, up to the point that Nicoló himself had to publicly urged his mum to “stay out of it.” There are not many young adults who must end up defending their mum from the general public’s noxious attention and urge her not to chase it at the same time.
Not everything went perfect of course, as Zaniolo also had his reckless teenager moments like many people of his age do – like when he was excluded by the Under-21 selection alongside Moise Kean for coming late to a team meeting (an event which was, of course, amplified and exaggerated because it involved “bad boy” Kean and “Italy’s hope” Zaniolo).
But now, this. Back-to-back to injuries to both his anterior cruciate ligaments. Think about it: Zaniolo just recovered from one of the most common, yet dangerous mishaps for a footballer’s career, and now he suffered the same injury again. It’s going to take enormous willpower to get back on track and the coming months will really show what Nicoló Zaniolo is made of.
What must he be thinking about now? He might have Giuseppe Rossi in mind, another player billed as the next Italian sensation, whose career was surely limited by a painful string of recurring injuries – up to the point that he never got the chance to feature for the Azzurri in a World Cup.
He might be thinking about the Fenomeno Ronaldo Nazario – who did what he did but was forced to miss two entire seasons due to back-to-back injuries, and was never truly the same again after his comeback. Not to mention the unforgettable Marco Van Basten, the Swan of Utrecht, whose crystal ankles forced him to cut his career short when he was at the top of the football world and in his full athletic prime.
However, if we can make a suggestion to the young Nicoló, we have one name for him to look at.
Think of Roberto Baggio, son. You are going to need much resilience and willpower in the coming months, and the Divin Codino is an example to look at in that regard.
Baggio was more or less your age, and surely less known and sought after than you, when he suffered the first of a terrific chain of injuries in May 1985. It took 220 stitches to fix his maimed knee, where both the ACL and the meniscus seemed compromised. He was told many times he probably had to stop playing. He didn’t see the pitch for more than one year and when he finally saw it, his right knee collapsed again – forcing him to stop for six more months.
Yet, he came back stronger, becoming an example of – well, pretty much everything a football player should have. It would be nice if the two of you could connect and we like to think that it’s going to happen somehow. He would have much to tell you about bouncing back from a situation like this.
If you need to look at somebody, Nicoló, please look at Baggio. Look at those scars on his knees and at what he did in his career despite the adverse fate. Use this time to grow your hunger and find a balance in your life. Luck might not be on your side but, at 21, time still is.
We will be waiting for you.
Good luck!