We Arsenal fans, we’ve been hurt before. So I think it’s more than fair that many of us have expressed skepticism about a potential deal bringing current flavour of the month defender Riccardo Calafiori to the Emirates from Bologna in Serie A. After all, he’s been linked with Juventus, now coached by his former boss, Thiago Motta! We’ve seen this before. Twice before, in fact.
But Wednesday seemed to signal something of a shift in the race for this player, with Italian reports and then Fabrizio Romano declaring Arsenal the lead horse for Riccardo’s signature. The deal could be done for something around €50m, per those reports, or about £42.5m.
And though I must protect my heart, I finally caved in this week, logged into the Cannon Stats Wyscout and started reviewing the film.
The player
Calafiori is a youth product of Roma, having joined them at age 8 and staying until he was 18. In that time, he made 10 appearances (four starts!) in Serie A, all as a wide left defender, two under Paolo Fonseca, and two under Jose Mourinho.
Roma sent the young left-footer to Genoa on a loan for the second half of the 2021-2022 season, but he played just 82 minutes, making one start.
That didn’t stop FC Basel from making a move for Calafiori, and he joined them in the summer of 2022 for just €1m. Over the next two seasons he started 24 games, 21 of them in an uncharacteristically poor fifth-place finish for Basel in 2022-2023. He started another three this past season before moving to Bologna in a €4m deal, and then he started another 26 for the Italian side, the vast majority of which came at left centre-back. He’s played the same position for the Italian National Team at this summer’s European Championships.
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