It is not so long ago that Gianluigi Donnarumma’s mother was obliged to bring his birth certificate along to every game he played. As an 11-year-old competing in local leagues close to their home in the Gulf of Naples, her son would often stand a foot taller than any other player. Week after week, Marinella was required to produce the document from her purse to appease opponents who accused him of being too old for the category in which he was competing.
Five years later, he still towers over his team-mates. The only difference nowadays is that they are all grown men. Named in Milan’s team to face Sassuolo on Sunday, Donnarumma, aged 16 years and eight months, became the youngest goalkeeper ever to start a Serie A match. A shade over 6ft 5in, he was also comfortably the tallest man on the pitch.
His selection had been preannounced by Sinisa Mihajlovic, provoking both excitement and anxiety among Milan’s supporters. Donnarumma was a highly-touted prospect, one whom had been described by his former Italy Under-17 coach Bruno Tedino as a “predestinato” and “the national team goalkeeper of the future”, but was he ready for this responsibility?
In Mihajlovic’s mind, there was no question. He had seen the saves that Donnarumma was pulling off in training.
“I don’t look at age, I look at whether someone is good or not,” insisted the manager. “The lad trains well and right now he gives me more confidence.” With Diego López struggling between the sticks and his team shipping 14 goals in their first eight league games, Mihajlovic might also have felt that he did not have an awful lot to lose.
For Donnarumma, it was a dream come true. He had wanted to play for Milan ever since his older brother, Antonio, went north to join the Rossoneri’s academy back when Gianluigi was just six years old.
The story goes that the club scout who arrived in Naples to seal Antonio’s move looked at Gianluigi and joked: “Are you a goalie too?” The answer was already an emphatic “yes”. He had started to practice with his uncle, Ernesto, a keeping coach, from the age of four.
Gianluigi would join Milan’s academy at 14, after having been scouted by Juventus, Roma, Udinese, Fiorentina and Inter. He had completed a successful trial with the Nerazzurri but chose Milan without hesitation – even though Antonio had been sold to Genoa in the meantime.
By now the younger Donnarumma had drawn the attention also of Mino Raiola, who helped negotiate his first contract at Milan. Invited by Gazzetta dello Sport to draw up the team he would buy with €100m this January, the agent named the teenager as his starting goalkeeper.
Raiola is not shy of overselling his clients, so it was natural to take such a proclamation with a dose of salt. But Pippo Inzaghi included Donnarumma on his bench for the first time in a game against Cesena a few weeks later and considered starting him away to Atalanta on the final weekend of the season.
Just to be a substitute felt special to the player. “Mamma mia, what an emotion,” Donnarumma told VivoAzzurro.it. “Every time I come out of the tunnel and go towards the bench, I relive my childhood dream.”
His opportunities grew over the summer. Mihajlovic introduced him as a late substitute in a goalless draw against Real Madrid in the International Champions Cup draw. Donnarumma saved a Toni Kroos penalty in the ensuing shootout, only to miss his own spot-kick at the end of a lengthy sudden death.
A goalkeeper can be forgiven this sort of failure. If anything, Mihajlovic is likely to have been more troubled by the occasional error born of overconfidence that the player had made in the youth ranks. Donnarumma notably cost his team a result against PSV in the Viareggio tournament earlier this year, when he rushed off his line prematurely and failed to win a challenge on the edge of the box.
There would be no such headstrong moments against Sassuolo. Donnarumma was imperfect on his debut, allowing himself to be beaten at the post he should have been guarding from a Domenico Berardi free-kick. Milan, though, battled back to claim a 2-1 victory.
For Mihajlovic to stick with his keeper against Chievo on Wednesday represented a significant vote of confidence. The manager’s job was said to be under threat, and Silvio Berlusconi had joked in the buildup to the match that he would need to insert himself into the Milan’s starting XI to properly turn their fortunes around.
Perhaps that will not be necessary after all. With Donnarumma in goal, Milan beat Chievo 1-0, claiming their second victory in four days. Just as significantly, this was their first clean sheet of the campaign.
Donnarumma did not have to be brilliant. Chievo lacked incisiveness up front despite forcing their opponents onto the back foot at times. But the goalkeeper did what was required of him, making reaction saves to keep out Sergio Pellissier’s header in the first-half and Alberto Paloschi’s near-post shot in the second.
His most eye-catching stop was a meaningless one, made on an attack where Chievo had already been flagged for offside. Nevertheless, the reflexes and range that Donnarumma showed to thwart Lucas Castro were impressive.
There was one nervy moment before the end. Milan had taken the lead through Luca Antonelli’s beautiful billiard shot early in the second half, but looked for a moment to have blown it when Donnarumma dropped the ball and Paul-José M’Poku forced it home in injury time. Happily for the fans at San Siro, the goal was disallowed for a foul on the keeper.
It is too soon to say whether Donnarumma can hold down this job all season, let alone achieve his stated objective of becoming a bandiera – a club icon – at Milan. But for now his presence has brought a much needed shot of optimism to a piazza that needed it.
That birth certificate in Marinella’s purse would still entitle him to go back and play with kids his own age if he wanted to. But he certainly does not look out of place among the adults.
Talking points
Roma, Roma, Roma. The league leaders put three goals past Udinese on Wednesday and now have an extraordinary 25 in total from just 10 Serie A games. This feels like a moment to laud Gervinho, in particular, who has six in his last seven appearances across all competitions. After a deeply disappointing 2014-15 season, followed by a summer flirtation with Al-Jazira, his return to form has been a hugely important factor in Roma’s recent surge. That said, I will continue to doubt this team’s title credentials until it tightens up at the back. Roma have managed one clean sheet all season, and that against a Frosinone team that was still finding its feet at the start of September.
A full 11 points behind Roma already are Juventus, who lost 1-0 away to Sassuolo thanks to this fine free-kick from Nicola Sansone. It was another robust and impressive display from the Neroverdi, a team who have become more than the sum of their parts under Eusebio Di Francesco, and for whom Francesco Manganelli has been exceptional of late in his role as a midfield ball-winner. But Juventus were correspondingly poor, and cannot completely hide behind Giorgio Chiellini’s first-half sending off. Their 12 points from 10 games are a record low at the club since the introduction of three points for a win.
Frosinone emerged triumphant in what some Italian media outlets had taken to calling the ‘Lotito Derby’ (in honour of the Lazio owners infamous comments last season) against Carpi. Both teams had a man sent off in a fixture high on tension that was not settled until Paolo Sammarco struck in the 91st minute. If the timing felt harsh on Carpi, then it is worth noting that Frosinone had seen a perfectly good Luca Paganini goal wrongly disallowed earlier in the second half. It was a third consecutive victory for the hosts at the Stadio Matusa.
Gonzalo Higuaín takes over atop the scoring charts with his eighth league goal of the season, a strike which set Napoli on the way to a seventh straight win in all competitions. The only minor black mark on this 2-0 victory was Lorenzo Insigne’s angry reaction to being replaced with Dries Mertens (who in turn seemed to vent a little frustration of his always being made to start on the bench as he celebrated scoring his team’s second goal). Manager Maurizio Sarri did not appear overly concerned, saying: “Maybe all players should leave the pitch bitter at being substituted.”
After beating Lazio, Atalanta have now collected 13 out of a possible 15 points at home this season. Away from home, they have four. Still, that’s nothing on Lazio themselves, who have won all five matches at the Stadio Olimpico, but managed just three points from five games on their travels.
Results: Atalanta 2-1 Lazio, Bologna 0-1 Inter, Frosinone 2-1 Carpi, Milan 1-0 Chievo, Napoli 2-0 Palermo, Roma 3-1 Udinese, Sassuolo 1-0 Juventus, Torino 3-3 Genoa, Verona 0-2 Fiorentina.
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