Can Federico Chiesa follow father Enrico to make Fiorentina impact?

There’s an old photograph that Federico Chiesa likes to look at every now again. It was taken in Parma when he was just two years old. Chiesa is kicking a ball around what looks like Piazza Garibaldi, scattering a kit of pigeons. “My career as a footballer started there,” he likes to joke. This was back in 1999. Federico’s father Enrico will have been in his second or third season at the Ennio Tardini and whenever he returns to this part of the world, he’s made to feel welcome.  

The drinks aren’t always on the house, but memories of the thunderbolt he scored against Marseille in the UEFA Cup that year, Parma’s final goal in that game, are drenched in nostalgia. Parma have never hit the same heights again. “I’ve seen almost all of my Dad’s goals,” Federico reveals. “Not many of them live. Most of them on YouTube.” He was a little too young. His Dad’s last game in Serie A came a few months before his 11th birthday. The family moved to Tuscany as Enrico’s career began to wind down at Fiorentina, Siena and then amateur side Figline where Maurizio Sarri used to play. 

The coach in Sarri’s time at Figline was Kurt Hamrin, the ‘Little Bird’, whose goals flew in so often he became Fiorentina’s all-time top scorer, a status he held until a certain Gabriel Batistuta came along. Now in his `80s, Hamrin is not one for sitting at home all day, watching TV and pottering around the garden. He misses the smell of freshly cut grass and the thud of a kicked football and, as such, his passion for game did, until very recently, continue to get the old Swede out of the house. He would help out at Settignanese, a boys’ club on the outskirts of Florence, near Coverciano, the prestigious coaching school. Although Federico claims his football career started in Parma, the truth is this is where it all began. For an adopted Tuscan, whose father played three seasons for Fiorentina and scored 27 goals one year, how cool is that? Meeting Hamrin. Learning under his watchful eyes.  

Now, Chiesa was always realistic about his chances of following in his father’s footsteps. Hindsight makes his rise look inevitable when frankly it was everything but. In fact there was a time, shortly after he entered Fiorentina’s academy, when he couldn’t get a game for their Under-15s. The only football he played at the time was with the class of `98, the kids from the year below. “That’s never a good sign,” Chiesa recognised. While it was always Federico’s dream to emulate his father, if he hadn’t been able to, it would not have been a problem. “I love the sciences. Everything about them from molecules to the universe. If I hadn’t made it as a footballer, I would have liked to become a physicist.”  

Federico discovered this interest while at the International School of Florence. His fellow students were American and Japanese. All lessons, aside from Italian class, were in English. So he’s now fluent and speaks a little French too. “Obviously I hope to establish myself in the game, but if I don’t get that opportunity, if I had to make my fortune elsewhere, there is a world of possibility open to me.” But it doesn’t look like Chiesa will be swapping his Fiorentina shirt for a lab-coat anytime soon. In football terms, you might say he has been defying gravity. No one has been able to pull him down. Not even SPAL.  

For a while last summer it looked as though Chiesa would be sent to Serie B. Other academy graduates like Federico Bernardeschi and Khouma Babacar had both spent time in the second division getting to grips with the more physical and tactical side of the professional game. But with Chiesa it was different. A sign that perhaps attitudes have changed. One of the themes of the season so far in Serie A, in addition to fathers and sons, is the no fear approach to giving the kids a chance. You could argue this started with Chiesa because an hour and a half before Fiorentina’s opening game of the campaign, the game of all games for the Viola, away to Juventus at the J Stadium, Chiesa got a phone call from Paulo Sousa. “‘You’re playing,” he said. ‘You’re in for Borja Valero’.” Chiesa couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “I went white. My legs began to tremble.”  

Six months after making his Serie A debut against the champions, it looked like the first goal of his career in Serie A was the winner against them as well. Nipping in behind Alex Sandro, the opportunistic Chiesa appeared to get the faintest of touches and flick the ball beyond Gigi Buffon. Yes, Gigi Buffon, his father’s former Parma teammate who, presumably, congratulated Enrico on that day in October 1997 as he broke the news that his wife had given birth to a baby boy. Alas the dubious goals committee awarded it to Milan Badelj, the player who had lifted the ball into the box, concluding that Chiesa had never even touched it. The Killjoys. “It’s my goal,” Chiesa insists. 

Already off the mark in the Europa League, he wouldn’t have to wait much longer to find the net in Serie A. Last weekend Chiesa slid in and found the far post, finishing off a lightning quick counter attack against Chievo. From his reaction, it was clear that he couldn’t quite believe it. Chiesa stayed on his knees, his hands covering his face. “I didn’t know what to do,” Federico said. Picture his father’s reaction. The pride he must have felt. 16 years on from his last goal for Fiorentina, there was his boy putting one away for the Viola. La Vita è bella, as they say.

“Dad gives me a lot of advice,” Federico explains, “particularly on how I should behave, the importance of fair play, respect for referees and for my teammates. He doesn’t go into how I should play. He’s always left that to the coaches.” Sousa says: “I’ve never had any doubts about Federico. He has this tremendous desire to do well, to play and enjoy himself.” Federico is a different player from his father. He plays up front but out-wide and models his game on Angel di Maria. His hope is to become a fan favourite at the Franchi. He has just signed a new contract until 2021 and if it were down to him he would finish his career in Florence. “I’ve been here 10 years. It feels like a lifetime.” 

Asked before the Juventus game if he would be happy to do what Claudio Marchisio has done with the Old Lady and play for one club all his life, Federico did not hesitate. “Where do I sign? Maybe one day I could be captain too. These days it isn’t easy for a player to turn down certain offers from China [like Nikola Kalinic did], but there are still players who play football because they’re passionate about the game and love one shirt. I am one of those players.”  

It seems physics’ loss is football’s gain. And if we relate Newton to Enrico and Federico Chiesa, clearly the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.