Player Focus: Prolific Pavoletti Flourishing Away From Serie A's Spotlight
Funny thing destiny, isn’t it? Leonardo Pavoletti will openly admit he became a footballer almost by accident. His father, Paolo, is a tennis instructor and it wouldn’t have been at all surprising if he had followed in his footsteps and tried to go pro. He apparently had a formidable two-handed backhand.
At a time when most footballers are breaking through into the first team and focusing entirely on their careers in the game, Pavoletti wanted to go to university. He fancied becoming a physiotherapist then, upon doing more research, considered a degree in biology instead. Unlike many of his teammates, Pavoletti doesn’t have any tattoos either. You won’t see him leaving Genoa’s Pegli training ground in a gold Hummer, a camouflage wrapped Lambo or a red Ferrari either. He drives a Mini Cooper.
The only thing Pavoletti has in common with Mario Balotelli, aside from playing up front and being paid to score goals, is their choice of pet: a pig. His is a Vietnamese one. Not the fashionable miniature kind and he goes by the name of ‘Mou’. Don’t misunderstand Pavoletti here. His pig is not named after the Special One. Pav’s a Milan fan, not an Interista, which is curious in itself for someone from Livorno, the city where Italy’s Communist Party was founded. Hardly a place for sympathy with anything associated with Silvio Berlusconi. Mou, if you take Pavoletti’s word for it, is Vietnamese for ‘Pig’ and he lives with Pavoletti’s brother’s ex-girlfriend.
Complicated, I know. What I’m saying is Pavoletti really should be your favourite footballer. He became mine when he visited a children’s hospital before Christmas and thought nothing of putting on a clown suit if it brought a little joy to the kids on the ward. It’s a bonus that he just so happens to be a bloody good player too. While Gonzalo Higuain and Paulo Dybala are stealing all the headlines at the moment, Pavoletti continues to fly under the radar. He does not have the same profile. He isn’t Argentine. His club didn’t pay more than €30m for him. Contrast his CV with Higuain’s for a minute and you’ll see what I mean. When Higuain was at River Plate and Real Madrid, Pavoletti was down in the lower tiers with Armando Picchi, Viareggio, Pavia and Juve Stabia, Casale and Virtus Lanciano.
A reluctant talker, he keeps himself to himself. “If you do well on the pitch,” Pavoletti says, “you don’t need too many words.” But the superlatives are coming as quick as the goals this season. “He’s our Higuain,” Gian Piero Gasperini told Sky Italia on Sunday and this was no exaggeration. Pipita’s record in Serie A this season is 20 in 20 appearances in Serie A. He is averaging a goal every 85 minutes. By comparison, Pavogol has got 10 in 11 starts and when he has featured from kick off, it’s one every 72 minutes. Monday’s edition of Il Messaggero billed him “faster than high-speed broadband,” which tells you all you need to know about download speeds in Italy. With Pavoletti, there’s no buffering.
He is averaging a goal every 33 touches, a record in Serie A. Genoa would be lost without him. Actually they have only lost without him. In the eight games Pavoletti has not featured - including the time he was sent off after six minutes against Carpi - Genoa have been beaten eight times. They managed to score only once, which goes some way to explaining why last season’s seventh place finishers have been hovering around the relegation zone this season. With Pavoletti in the team, things are infinitely more respectable: six wins, four draws and three losses.
3-0 down in the Derby della Lanterna, he almost singlehandedly rescued Genoa from the jaws of defeat with a brace. If Darko Lazovic hadn’t missed a sitter, they would have got something out of that game. Make no mistake the team is dependent on Pavoletti. Genoa have mustered just 23 goals this season and until he returned from suspension after Christmas, their attack ranked 18th in the league. Pav accounts for 43% of their goals and has put away five in their last three outings.
Ever since that stirring final half hour against Samp, the team has belatedly taken off. Genoa have strung together back-to-back wins for the first time this season and should now start to distance themselves from trouble. Comparisons have been drawn with Diego Milito for his prolificness. “He is (nicknamed) il Principe in Genova. The Prince. I am a blue collar worker,” Pavoletti humbly concedes. Once again recognition is owed to Gasperini as a centre-forward whisperer. Marco Borriello, Milito and Rodrigo Palacio all went up another level under his management and the same transformation has happened with Pavoletti since he joined from Sassuolo a year ago. Recall he finished last season scoring in five consecutive games.
One person to have followed his career closely is Cristiano Lucarelli. Capocannoniere 11 years ago, both are Livornese. Maybe there really is something in the water on that stretch of Italian coastline. “I met Leo when he was playing (in the fourth tier) with Armando Picchi,” Lucarelli told Il Secolo XIX. “That year he scored 15 or 18 goals. I told Parma about him but they didn’t feel like making an offer.” More fool them because Lucarelli sees a bit of himself in Pavoletti. “I think we’re quite similar. Maybe I was a little more technical (mind you Pavoletti will have something to say about that after his stunning bicycle kick at the weekend). Leo is more dynamic.”
It’s that spirit of sacrifice, his willingness to work for the team and take up positions that aren’t his own that make him a modern striker. However, his direct style and aerial prowess - Pavoletti has scored more headers than any player in Serie A this season (4) - do nothing to discourage the notion of him as an old fashioned centre-forward and one that Italy could do with in France this summer. “He deserves a call up to the national team,” Gasperini believes and one must say that as the most in-form Italian striker at the moment, why shouldn’t Pavoletti if he sustains these performance levels.
It’s definitely something for Antonio Conte to think about. Graziano Pelle hasn’t scored in a couple of months now and that must be of particular concern considering Italy had settled on a big-man little-man partnership of the Southampton striker and Samp’s Eder. What counts against Pavoletti, unfortunately, is the limited time and opportunity Conte has to experiment with him between now and the tournament, particularly after the training camp he demanded outside of the next international break was cancelled following the decision of the clubs still involved in Europe not to release their players. It’s a shame because Pavoletti deserves a cap. His football has been Pavoloso this season. Absolutely Pavulous.
Do you think Leonardo Pavoletti deserves his shot with the national team? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
