As it turns out, Gennaro Gattuso was the childhood idol of Sandro Tonali as the by-now-former Brescia playmaker started to make his way into the world of football. And now that Tonali is officially a Milan player he will inherit the iconic number 8 shirt of Gattuso.
The fun thing is, he asked for permission to do so. Tonali reportedly called Gattuso himself yesterday to ask if the current Napoli manager was fine with him choosing the number 8 at Milan – a jersey that the unforgotten Ringhio wore for 13 seasons.
It is difficult to imagine two football characters more different than them. On one hand, the passionate, no-nonsense, hard-tackling Gennaro Gattuso; on the other hand, an ascending playmaker who’s often being compared to Andrea Pirlo for his elegance and vision of play.
Still, Tonali has referenced to Gattuso many times as a source of inspiration and compared his own style of play to that of Ringhio, perhaps suggesting that people should be looking deeper at his true style rather than forcing a comparison to Pirlo just because, let’s be frank, when it comes to the physical appearance he indeed seems to be a reincarnation of the Maestro.
But, aside from the permission, which was granted as expected, we call Tonali’s request a classy and stylish act on the part of a player whose recent choices evidenced him as a quite unusual personality in the often superficial and fake world of calcio.
Sandro Tonali has been on the radar of Inter and perhaps even Juventus for long, but eventually chose to seal his short-term footballing destiny to the Rossoneri – a club that, despite a glorious history, has been struggling for years to regain its international powerhouse status.
Why did he do that? “Blame it on fairytales,” Tonali himself explained in an Instagram story where he professed his Milan faith by posting a picture of himself wearing a red and black jersey. Basically, the 21-year-old chose to play for the team of his heart despite having other choices ahead of him that would have surely laid some quicker routes towards an international breakthrough.
Tonali completed his medical tests today and then signed a contract that made him a Milan man – just in time for him to be included in the club’s official list of players to participate in the Europa League, where the Rossoneri will make their debut on September 17 against Irish side Shamrock Rovers.
He joins on a five-year deal and Milan reportedly invested 35M euros to secure the services of the Lodi-born playmaker, who scored one goal in 36 appearances with Brescia last season but couldn’t prevent the Rondinelle from being relegated after just one year in Serie A.
At Milan, he will need to battle with the likes of Frank Kessié and Ismael Bennacer to win a central midfielder spot in Stefano Pioli’s starting lineup. But, with his call to Gattuso, Tonali has definitely started on the right foot: Who knows, Ringhio might have given him – on top of his blessing to wear the number 8 – a few tips on how to succeed in red-and-black…