Palanca’s magical left foot, Mauro’s dribbling, the captain’s armband on the arm of Ranieri, Mazzone or Di Marzio on the bench and we could go on and on: Banelli, Bui, Borghi, Bivi and a series of icons – even if not prominent ones – of Italian football of the 60s, 70s and 80s.
And again Di Natale, Tavano, Maccarone, Sarri or Spalletti: and even in this case you could read for hours a list full of people who have marked Serie A in the last 20-25 or 30 years. There is a common thread that links Catanzaro and Empoli, despite the thousand differences: they are or have been productive laboratories of a football that has led the province to compete with realities with catchment areas, history, money and immensely larger objectives.
The Tuscans have not yet lost this surprising “small” dimension, and even though they started the tournament as relegated, with many changes and clear difficulties (they have four points less than Catanzaro), they remain one of the most solid clubs in the category, economically and for the ideas they bring to the table, a model to look to for the valorization of young people and care of the youth team.
It is clear that tomorrow at the “Castellani” the match will have a good dose of charm and meaning not only in terms of ranking, starting from the intriguing long-distance duel between the two baby phenomena who had a greater impact than their peers on the first third of the championship. Catanzaro features Alphadjo Cisse, born in 2006, with five goals and a future as a star after this year of training on loan from Verona. Empoli can respond with Bohdan Popov, born in 2007, a Ukrainian who arrived in Italy due to the Russian invasion of his country and was weaned by the Tuscans: he too, six months younger than his opponent, scored five goals, four of which in the first three matchdays.
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