The rise of Arsenal transfer target Riccardo Calafiori: From career-threatening injury to Paolo Maldini comparisons

Riccardo Calafiori was 16 years of age, he’d only just signed his first professional contract with Roma and yet he was being told that his career might already be over. In the 82nd minute of a UEFA Youth League game against Viktoria Plzen, he’d been left with a right knee swollen so badly that it was three times the size of his left after being on the receiving end of a shocking, studs-up tackle from Vaclav Svoboda.

Some of the specialists that assessed the damage done couldn’t believe what they’d seen: all of the ligaments had been ruptured, along with his meniscus and articular capsule. “Something like this usually only happens in motocross – not in football,” a medic told the Corriere dello Sport. “It’s an injury that happens only once every 10 years.”

Looking back on it now, Calafiori says he was probably lucky that it happened while he was still so young, because he didn’t quite fully grasp the gravity of the situation. But that doesn’t make his defiant reaction to such a serious setback any less remarkable.

“The time has come to truly bring out everything that I have inside,” he wrote on Instagram just the day after his entire world had been turned upside down. “This time, no decisive match, no final to win… There is the most important battle of my life ahead of me, and I certainly cannot back down. The time has come to put aside the boy, the, at times, little boy that I have been until now, and become a MAN.

Road to recovery

Calafiori was sidelined for 347 days before making his comeback in a game for Roma’s Primavera at the start of the 2019-20 season. Unsurprisingly, there were doubts over whether he would still be the same player after the “hardest” journey of his life.

After all, Calafiori couldn’t have been held in higher esteem at Roma before his injury. Even the first-team squad were aware of his prodigious talent. Indeed, after scoring in the senior side’s Champions League clash with Plzen just hours after Calafiori had been rushed to hospital, Edin Dzeko ran to the bench and held up a shirt with the youngster’s name and number on the back.

Two-and-a-half years later, the attacking left-back teed the Bosnian up for a decisive equaliser as Roma reached the semi-finals of the Europa League with a 1-1 draw with Ajax at the Stadio Olimpico.

Thrown under the bus

At the time, Roma fans were optimistic that the club had unearthed another ‘bandiera‘ (literally meaning ‘flag’ in Italian, but more akin to a ‘symbol’ in a sporting sense) like Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi – a local lad destined to become a Giallorossi legend.

Paulo Fonseca, Roma’s coach at the time, was wary of such hyperbole, adamant that Calafiori needed “time to grow” without any undue pressure being placed on his young shoulders. “Suddenly treating him like he’s the best in the world right now is not helpful for the player,” the Portuguese warned. “But we trust he’ll have a great future.” Just not at Roma, unfortunately.

In a hammer blow for Calafiori’s hopes of becoming a regular at the Stadio Olimpico, Fonseca parted company with the club in the summer of 2021 and was replaced at the helm by Jose Mourinho, a manager with an infamously poor record when it comes to getting the best out of young talents.

It, thus, came as little surprise to see the supposed ‘Special One’ throw Calafiori under the bus – along with Bryan Reynolds and Marash Kumbulla – in October 2021 as the Portuguese looked to send a very pointed message to his new employers about the alleged weakness of the Roma squad.

Less than three months later, Calafiori was loaned to Genoa. At the end of the 2021-2022 season, he was sold to Basel for just €2.6m (£2.2m/$2.8m).

Roma’s regrets

De Rossi recently admitted that he still finds the nature of Calafiori’s exit “tough to stomach”.

Having returned to Roma as coach in January, succeeding Mourinho at the helm, he remains disgusted that such a promising player was allowed to leave the club – and for such a small fee, with no buy-back or sell-on clause included either. De Rossi acknowledges that Calafiori wasn’t ready to start on a weekly basis while still only a teenager, but felt that his potential was obvious.

Even more frustratingly for the former Italy midfielder, he thought all along that Calafiori had the makings of a fine centre-back – which is exactly what he’s become thanks in no small part to one of De Rossi’s former international colleagues, Thiago Motta.

From Basel to Bologna

Calafiori obviously didn’t want to leave Roma in the first place, but felt that he had no option at the time. “I played a bit under Mourinho at Roma but I wanted to play more, so I went to Genoa and it didn’t go well,” he told reporters earlier this month. “There wasn’t space for me there either, so then I went to Basel.

“I wasn’t too convinced, initially. I was almost obliged to go [to find first-team football]. But I immediately changed my mind. They had everything a young player needs to develop. I made 30 appearances for the first time, which helped me grow.”

Even more significantly, when Heiko Vogel took over from Alexander Frei as Basel boss in February of last year, Calafiori saw more and more game time as a centre-back.

Bologna were watching with interest and snapped him up for just €4m (£3.4m/$4.3m) at the end of his one and only season in Switzerland, with Motta convinced that Calafiori was the kind of multi-talented player that could excel in his fluid 4-3-3 formation if moved into the middle on a permanent basis.

Basel, though, didn’t make the same mistake as Roma. A 40 percent sell-on clause was included in the deal, meaning they’re going to make a tidy profit on a player that was attracting attention from some of the game’s biggest clubs even before announcing himself to a wider audience with a stellar display in Italy’s Euro 2024 opening-round win over Albania last month.

‘Perfect for Pep Guardiola’s style’

To call the 2023-24 season Calafiori’s breakout campaign would be putting it mildly. He was absolutely immense as Bologna stunned the world of Italian football by qualifying for the Champions League via a fifth-placed finish in Serie A, wowing a country renowned for producing quality defenders with his reading of the game and his comfort in possession.

The longer the season went on, the louder the clamour for Calafiori to be included in Luciano Spalletti’s squad for Euro 2024 became. There were no guarantees that he’d make the cut, given he’d played just 95 minutes of international football before the travelling party was announced, but injuries to Francesco Acerbi and Giorgio Scalvini undoubtedly aided his cause.

However, Spalletti may well have included Calafiori anyway, given he was so impressed with the 22-year-old’s ability on the ball that he even deployed him as a No.10 in one Italy training session. Anyone that’s seen him in action will understand why.

This is a defender that is wonderfully adept at breaking the line and creating both space, time and opportunities for team-mates. He ended the season with five assists from centre-back, and one of the two goals he scored against Juventus last month was an outrageous dinked finish. This is not a young man that lacks confidence.

After that 3-3 draw with Juve, team-mate Riccardo Orsolini was comparing him to Paolo Maldini, while Fabrizio Ravanelli was arguing as far back as April that Calafiori would be the ideal long-term replacement for John Stones at Manchester City.

“He’s a perfect fit for [Pep] Guardiola’s style because he can play various defensive roles,” the former Italy striker told Tuttosport. “Calafiori is excellent at starting attacks, as well as in marking and passing. Moreover, he seems to have a strong personality. In short, he would be an excellent addition.”

Evoking icons

Calafiori isn’t bound for Manchester City, though, as it seems he’s closing in on a £42m ($54m) move to Arsenal in a transfer that should work out just as well for the Roman, given Arteta is a disciple of Guardiola’s – and thus just as much of a lover of versatile, ball-playing defenders.

In that sense, Calafiori really should quickly feel at home at the Emirates. He looks like a throwback to the Italy of Maldini, Alessandro Nesta and Fabio Cannavaro – and he plays with the same seemingly effortless class and composure as them too.

He responded with characteristic resilience to the desperately unfortunate own goal he scored against Spain in the Euro 2024 group stage, effectively keeping his team in the tournament with a typically incisive break from the back that ended with him teeing up Matteo Zaccagni for the 98th-minute equaliser that secured the Azzurri a spot in the last 16.

“I just try to play like at club level and not think about the rest,” he told Sky Sport Italia during the Euros. “I focus only on positive sensations, like my family in the stands or friends watching back home on television. And I think I did pretty well.”

There’s certainly no doubt about that. The kid that was told his career might be over at Roma six years ago is now a man with the brightest possible future ahead of him at Arsenal.