Despite the turbulence in the club before the Euro, the 22-year-old Italian goalkeeper became the hero of the whole Boot by stopping two penalties in the final. The best player of the tournament is expected to sign for Paris Saint-Germain in the coming days.
At a time when Italy would capsize thanks to the delicacy of his hands, Gianluigi Donnarumma was moving on the lawn of Wembley with a manly approach that goes to work, the mind elsewhere. His teammates run to the doorman, who looks at the ground and doesn’t see the tide coming over him. “Let me climb it, because it is the Everest of this team”, the director Emanuele Gamba got carried away in The Republic. Perhaps Donnarumma realizes during this fusion between his yellow jersey and the blue of his comrades of what has just produced. Or he just did what we expected of such a talented player: to win Italy’s first Euro since 1968 on a hostile English lawn. “It’s a dream, I don’t know what to say, he exclaims after the meeting. It’s exceptional, we wrote history. Before the penalty shootout, I was calm, I know what I can do. ” What Roberto Mancini, his coach confirmed: “We knew he would stop because he’s the best goalkeeper in the world. He really is an amazing guy. ” So incredible that after those won against England and previously against Spain, this is the fifth winning penalty shootout of his career. He didn’t lose any.
As if to illustrate the swing of the player, Donnarumma is elected player of the tournament. An individual trophy that could have gone to Chiellini, Verratti, Chiesa, but the goalkeeper who measures 1m 96 planted the last banderillas of his team’s brilliant course, tactically well in place, playful most of the time, including in final where the stake holds back the most daring. He could do little or nothing on the very early opening of the English score and then did not have much to do for 120 minutes. But the great players are revealed during the moments that matter. Since Sunday evening, he has been the hero of an entire country.
Soon on the banks of the Seine
The native of Castellammare di Stabia, south of Naples, had yet entered the competition in severe turbulence. His affair with AC Milan ended with his contract and the supporters resented him for his attitude and the money that had come to rot. When his upcoming arrival at PSG was unofficially recorded, observers and Parisian supporters wondered for their part what was the point of signing another goalkeeper, when the brilliant Keylor Navas was already there. Since the final, the probable arrival without transfer allowance of Donnarumma on the banks of the Seine has turned into one of the best shots on the transfer market for several years.
At 22, the world is open to him. Announced as the next big among the greats since he was 16, he is already the youngest goalkeeper to win the Euro since the Spaniard José Angel Iribar, crowned at 21 in 1964. This sets a player, while his position is the one that sees the majority mature much later. “I have great consideration for him, tells the legendary Italian goalkeeper Dino Zoff, European champion in 1968. The obvious is that he has great prospects for becoming a great goalkeeper. Then it will depend on him, but the possibilities are immense. ” A future that is already being written in the present for those who have entered the palace of the greatest current guardians.
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