In his second year in Serie A, the Monza goalkeeper confirmed himself as one of the best in the category.
The summer of 2022 was the one in which Monza made its ambitions in Serie A public. Being able to count on a more than solid ownership with Silvio Berlusconi at the head and an experienced helmsman like Adriano Galliani, that summer Monza purchased a whole series of players who we have the habit of considering well above the possibilities of a newly promoted team. Pessina, Caprari, Petagna, Sensi, Ranocchia, Izzo, Cragno, Rovella and others in a single transfer market session were a luxury that shouted to the world “we are here to stay”. Passed a little under the radar precisely by virtue of the purchase of Alessio Cragnofew have given value to the redemption, for a figure just over 4 million euros, of the promotion goalkeeper, the then 24 year old Michele Di Gregorio. Also because Di Gregorio had done well in Serie B, but do you want to put Cragno, who for a couple of years was on the crest of the wave and among the best goalkeepers in Serie A?
Michele Di Gregorio was born and raised in Milan in the summer of 1997, and from the tender age of 6 he joined the youth team ofInter. He went through the entire process with the Nerazzurri shirt, up to the victory of the Primavera Championship and Italian Cup in 2017. But then, when it was time to take flight among the greats, something went wrong: the parent company sent him on loan to Renate, Novara, Pordenone and finally Monza. He always plays as a starter, but doesn’t attract the attention of more famous clubs.
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If we want, Di Gregorio is part of those goalkeepers who blossomed well beyond their age of majority to whom we didn’t have time to attach the stigmata of the new Buffon – and considering the damage this label has done, one has to say “good for them”. He shares this imaginary category with Cragno (born in ’94, rose to prominence in 2017), Provedel (born in ’94, only appeared in Serie A at 24 with Empoli but above all at 26 with Lo Spezia) and of course Vicar (born in ’96, to the attention of the general public since 2020). Unlike others of his age, such as Meret and before him Scuffet, he was not put in the spotlight at a very young age, and perhaps this allowed him to follow his own calm path, loan after loan, without superfluous pressure, until he found the Serie A – and put it in your pocket.
Di Gregorio distributes 88 kilos over 187 centimeters of height, which makes him a less tall goalkeeper than today’s average and certainly less slender. Even visually, he gives the impression of a big, heavy goalkeeper, a wall, with a physique more like a Greek statue than a football goalkeeper. Normolineo with a physical structure halfway between the mesomorph and the endomorph, Di Gregorio however amazes for the ability he has to throw his mass to the ground in a fraction of a second.
The first thing that catches the eye in Michele Di Gregorio is in fact the great power it manages to unleash. Aided by an excellent muscular base, he has an exceptional push phase that allows him to reach the most remote corners of the 7 meters and 32 centimeters of goal in an instant. This quality is so evident that he almost always chooses the push step to dive to the ground or halfway up, saving further fractions of a second on a foot-shock. As an example, another goalkeeper who amazed and amazes with this quality is Donnarumma.
This ability also allows him to mask a not always optimal positioning between the posts: the speed with which he reaches the corners of the goal more than makes up for the few centimeters left for opposing shots. He is a goalkeeper with great conditional forcean indispensable quality in modern football – regardless of the role.
Another great quality – even greater considering his size – is the reactivity he demonstrates on close calls. In the double save on Vlahović, the reactivity of the second intervention stands out. Going down, with the fall not yet completed, coming back up and kicking the second ball away is an amazing athletic gesture. And he pushes almost only with his left leg, the right tibia still touches the ground.
And in fact Di Gregorio rose to prominence above all because he became the protagonist of extraordinary saves with uncommon consistency. If it is true that Monza is a team that on average suffers more shots than average in Serie A – and this is a circumstance that puts goalkeepers on display more easily – it must also be said that Monza’s goalkeeper currently has the best percentage of shots saved in the league (82.7%, FBref data). Furthermore, at the time of writing, in the 24 championship matches played he has conceded 21 goals of 27.5 post-shot expected goalsPSxG, i.e. the metric that gives value to each shot depending on where it ends up in the mirror (unlike xG which gives a value depending on the position from which the shot starts): a positive delta of 6.5 goals saved.
Always hyper-focused, leaning towards the action, he shows a textbook lateral step; his preparation for conclusions is characterized by an optimal weight distribution, forward, and never static. Di Gregorio also goes down very well in foot lift, a technique which he shows off to the point of almost abusing it. In fact, he doesn’t like to use his lower limbs for close-up shots on the figureand often prefers to rely on the great speed of descent to the ground rather than lifting one leg – and in this too it must be said that he is reminiscent of Donnarumma.
Di Gregorio owns one good grip, either with open hands or with a locking technique to the chest or to the solid ground. However, he doesn’t use it frequently: perhaps it is not an obvious choice due to the great force released with each dive, which would lead him to handle a ball in his hand with a very great momentum; or perhaps unconsciously he prefers to push away the first shot, get up, and face the second danger rather than risk the catch to avoid the rebound.
Di Gregorio is a goalkeeper born to punch the ball.
There are situations in which he perhaps pays something to the other top players in Serie A low outputs. The ball attack at close ranges is more than good, but the poor positioning and a little reticence (slowness?) on vertical mobility make him prefer the safety of the goal line to the unknown outside the posts. On the other hand, he has excellent readings and excellent timing on high exits, in which he can make the most of his physique and grip.
In a team that relies heavily on a varied and elaborate ball output like Monza, Di Gregorio does quite well with his feet. A natural right-footed player, he has sufficient sensitivity for effective short and medium range distribution; it is not uncommon to see him look for Palladino’s playmakers or raise the ball to catch the full-backs behind the attackers. Above all, he fully embraces the responsibilities of being a game-creating goalkeeper within a modern system.
According to Opta data, Michele Di Gregorio touches 44 balls every 90 minutes, a figure that places him ahead of other goalkeepers who are on average very involved such as Maignan (42 touches per 90), Sommer (39) or Provedel (35) and second overall in Serie A; only Vanja Milinković-Savić ahead of him with just under 48 touches p90. From a technical point of view he doesn’t shine for joint mobility, but this doesn’t stop him from contributing to the first construction. In short, he may not have Maignan’s basic technique or Sommer’s long ball, but we cannot say that he is not comfortable orchestrating the start of the action from his own area – or even outside of it.
If you have reached the end of this article, it is probably to satisfy your thirst for an answer to the fateful question: “where can it get?” or, more pragmatically, “is he ready for a big one?”. Michele Di Gregorio has been consistently among the best goalkeepers in Serie A for two seasons. If you are like me and don’t like saying “the strongest”, we can say without fear of contradiction that he has been on the podium of the best goalkeepers in the top division since he started playing there. Its dizzying growth should have already made us put aside the definition of one-season wonder that someone, mindful of Cragno’s rise and decline, had placed on him. At the same time, his defects remain the same: he is formidable shot-stopper, but he is not an innovator and due to his age, defects, and the protected and peculiar context in which he exploded, verification in a first-tier team risks not being a given.
Its size, however, cannot be Monza. Without taking anything away from the ambitions of the Brianza people, the dazzling performances with which he is delighting us deserve a different stage. It seems that Inter have their eyes on us to bring him home, even if it is not clear with what intentions – it would be a CTP, a Club-Trained Player, which would allow the Nerazzurri to “save” a place in the UCL list and is always tempting for teams with European commitments. Maybe taking the starting place in the (future) Italian champions would bring with it some risks, but This Michele Di Gregorio is worth at least a team aiming for Europe.
2024-03-11 08:00:00
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