Matteo Paro (6 Viewers)
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Matteo Paro: Par excellence
Some good had to come out of Juventus’ relegation and the Calciopoli scandal this summer. There are a few new names near the top of Serie A, the Second Division has gained a lot of new viewers and the Bianconeri have had to put more faith in young Italians. One of the first building blocks of their recovery has been Matteo Paro.
After an era when Juve constructed their team around continental superstars, this central midfielder comes from a lot closer to home. Paro was born in Asti in the Piedmont region, but the chances of carving out a career with the local giants were slim until adversity struck the club. That is something which the player – a Juventino at heart – is the first to recognise. “There are two sides to the story,” he admitted. “As a fan I was upset, but dropping down into Serie B has opened doors for me that would otherwise have remained locked.”
The odds against the defensive midfielder getting his shot at the Turin giants certainly looked significant. He was punted out to Chievo as part of the deal that brought the ill-fated Nicola Legrottaglie to the club. Then he was moved on to lowly Crotone before getting his first serious shot at the top flight – and checking out how he looked in black and white – with Siena last year. Still, it was only when it was confirmed that Juve were to drop into Serie B that they decided the boy was ready for his biggest assignment yet.
The 23-year-old has not been fazed by the task. Paro wrote his name in this unwanted chapter of Bianconeri history when he scored their first ever goal as a Serie B side. After that he became one of the few ever-presents in the Juve line-up in the opening weeks of the campaign and his performances even put him in with a shout of a call up to the national team. He was being tipped for selection in the friendly against Turkey, but in the end Roberto Donadoni passed over him. If he can continue learning from the great players around him, however, he might become hard to ignore in a position where Italy are short of good cover.
“Didier Deschamps told us we would all get our chance – I have tried to take advantage of mine,” he said recently. “Every game is an amazing feeling and going out on to the field with these great players is a dream come true. I am amazed at how down-to-earth and professional they all are. And they are full of help, encouragement and moral support.”
That must have been reassuring to a boy thrown in at the deep end with a club in crisis. Along with fellow youngsters like Claudio Marchisio and Raffaele Palladino, he has responded well to that pressure. So much so that Coach Deschamps has likened Paro to Andrea Pirlo. It is more than a little premature to be making such comparisons – he has a lot to learn on the distribution front – but nonetheless it is a mark of how highly the youngster is regarded.
His role model is another former Juve midfielder, Paulo Sousa, who used to dictate the tempo of the team from the centre of the park. That is certainly setting the standard pretty high as the Portuguese international was part of the vintage Bianconeri side which won the League, Coppa Italia and Champions League. Still, he seems happy to be right in the thick of things. “It is a role I have always liked because you see a lot of the ball and you need to be a complete player and know how to attack and how to defend,” he said. “I need to learn to keep up my concentration and be a bit more aggressive.”
One area where he needs no schooling is in the art of how to talk a good game if his first Press interviews as a full-blooded Juventino are anything to go by. He has perfectly adopted the humble persona that the Bianconeri have tried to take on following their summer’s sporting punishment. It seems with Paro, however, that the humility is entirely genuine. “Getting so close to the top of the table so soon is a great incentive for us to do even better,” he said. “The Serie B season is long and hard and there are a lot of strong teams this year. Our Coach is right to keep us concentrated because we will not win every game easily.”
Just the same, it would be a shock not to see the new black and white generation win the Division by a distance this season. The biggest hope for neutrals will be that they keep the faith with at least some of the boys who got them out of the Second Division when they move into the top flight. That could mean a big future for Paro at the heart of this new era. He could well be the latest example of that famous good fortune which – even in Serie B – has not yet abandoned those black and white stripes.
Giancarlo Rinaldi
crap price shudnt of sold at such a low price