It was winter in the Spanish capital. Fabio Cannavaro left the Real Madrid training ground when a foreigner reported it. An autograph hunter, he thought. A piece of paper was produced from a pocket. But there was no pen to apply the signature that accompanies it.
Instead, it was presented with what turned out to be a business card. Cannavaro saw the Rouge de France football lettering, the magazine behind the Ballon d’Or. Their journalist asked if he could enter the Italian defender’s car. He insists. The vote for this year’s price took place in real time and a tilting point had been reached.
He thought Cannavaro was going to win. Cannavaro thought it was a joke.
It was in 2006 and, only a few months earlier, Cannavaro had captain his country to the glory of the world final. However, he didn’t think much about his chances. Zinedine Zidane’s red card in this final gave him a shot. But a defender had never won the prize, awarded to the best footballer in the world in the previous year (and none since). Franco Barei had arrived second in 1989, Paolo Maldini “only” third in 1994.
But it was to be different for Cannavaro. During this tournament in Germany, he obtained the nickname “The Berlin Wall”.
As the fourth and, so far, the final Italian to recover the Ballon d’Or and the most recent man to skip the country’s national team to victory during a World Cup, Cannavaro is often questioned about the trips of Italy. Why did they go from the biggest tournament of all not to qualify for the finals in 2018 and 2022?
On some occasions, it was critical: Italy has been lost. He tried to be different when he doesn’t need to be ashamed of his football DNA. In others, it was more diplomatic: football is cyclical and, sooner or later, a new generation will bring renewed competitiveness.
Giovanni Leoni, the central defender of Parma on his way to Liverpool for a first £ 26 million pounds sterling (35.3 million dollars), was born less than a month after Cannavaro was presented with the Ballon d’Or in November 2006, so he is too young to have seen him in his peak.
(Ivan Romano / Getty Images)
Around three years old when the defense of their title by Italy ended with an outing at the bottom of the table at the bottom of the table and without victory of South Africa 2010 (a point below New Zealand), he was seven years old when they reached their last World Cup in Brazil, again after three games in the first phase, beating England but losing against Uruguay and Costa Rica.
In truth, the production of defenders such as Leoni has never been a problem for Italy in the meantime. These are the baggios, Tottis, Vieris and Del Pieros they were missing.
Leoni, who after only 14 departures in Serie A is already in a hurry as a future captain of Italy, grew up at the time of the defense of the BBC – Leonardo Bonucci, Andrea Barzagli and Giorgio Chiellini – at Juventus. They were succeeded by Alessandro Bastoni and a late flowering at Francesco Acerbi in Pair at Inter. It was a period of finals of the lost European championship (2012) and won (2021) and Italian back lines being the basis of the Champions League finalists in 2015, 2017, 2023 and 2025.
Only one of these great central defenders played outside Italy in their advanced years.
The reason is quite simple. For many Italians, it does not become bigger than playing for one of the three large in their country. Few steps are higher in San Siro. Historically, few clubs guarantee you success like Juventus. Cannavaro, for example, only moved to Madrid at the back of this World Cup, the calciopoli scandal and the subsequent relegation of Juventus. Chiellini and Bonucci left Turin in their twilight years for experiences in Los Angeles (for Chiellini) and Berlin then Istanbul.
The exception is Barzagli, and it is Barzagli to whom an Italian sports director, speaking under the cover of anonymity, compares Leoni.
A team player at this 2006 World Cup and a member of the Wolfsburg team who turned the chances of winning the German Bundesliga three years later, the Tuscan cardiac milk, now an expert and vineyard, was the favorite signature of Andrea Agnelli throughout his presidency of Juventus – and not only because he cost € 300,000.
Chiellini and Bonucci were already at the club when Barzagli arrived a few months before his 30th anniversary. Juventus waded, finishing seventh for a second season, and would not start a sequence of nine years victories until Antonio Conte was appointed and thatrea Pirlo arrived from Milan on a free this summer.
But in Juventus, Barzagli continues to be recognized as a fundamental piece. It is less identified than Chiellini and Bonucci, and yet the two credits them to make them better central defenders. The two bow against him. When Barzagli retired in 2019, the director of Juventus at the time, Max Allegri called him “the professor of defenders”. It sounded well with Jose Mourinho’s commentary on the fact that the club was the Defense Harvard.
And so for Leoni to make comparisons with Barzagli at only 18 is not a weak praise.

(Piero Cruciatti / AFP via Getty Images)
It is rare that the three large in Italy leave a talent as it runs away, and there may be a parallel to be pulled with Marco Verratti here. Paris Saint-Germain made the turn of Juventus in 2012 and Verratti, then 19 years old at the second division Pescara, never looked back.
Is this what’s going on with Leoni?
On the one hand, the helplessness to stop its move reflects the financial state of series A and the Gulf in the power to spend between the Italian elite and their English peers. Serie A clubs have spent 860 million euros (742 million pounds sterling; $ 1 billion) so far this summer. A good amount. The Premier League teams, however, reduced checks to almost 2.4 billion euros…
At the same time, better choices could have been made by domestic candidates to the signing of Leoni. For example, the commitment made by the former sports director of Juventus, Cristiano Giuntoli, to sign Lloyd Kelly from Newcastle is one on the street. In that they only have to blame.
On the other hand, England is no longer the road less of a vocity for Italian players. It’s more and more THE Direction of the trip, especially for young people. If, like Leoni, Cannavaro had played for Parma in 2025 instead of 2002, his next move would probably have been in the Premier League, not in Inter.
The financial attraction is too large but, whatever the economy at stake, this is where promising Italians are encouraged to test themselves. When the Italian champions were eliminated from Euro 2024 to the round of the round of 16 last summer, their coach at the time, Luciano Spalletti, said that if the opportunity arose to go abroad, in particular in England, then the Italians had to grasp it. They will be better for that, he argued, such is the norm and competitiveness.

Leoni in action for Italy under 18 last year (Alessandro Sabattini / Getty Images)
Flash in front 13 months and the Premier League has never been able to count so much. Sandro Tonali, Riccardo Calafiori, Federico Chiesa, Michael Kayode, Luca Koleosho, Wilfried Gnonto, Diego Coppola, Guglielmo Vicario, Destiny Udogie. Perhaps Gianluigi Donnarumma soon.
This should be a source of optimism in their homeland.
Kayode, who obtained the only goal of the final when Italy won the under 19 euros two years ago, was a signature under the radar by Brentford de Fiorentina on an initial loan in January. Coppola, a 21 -year -old who plays the same position as Leoni, was recovered this summer by Brighton. The two signature clubs are renowned for the identification of talents.
As for Liverpool, well, their reputation in this regard precedes them.
It must be said that Leoni’s rise in power has been stratospheric – so fast, he only played eight times for Italy at youth levels. He is the son of a banker and a physiotherapist, who both played water polo at a high level. One of his brothers, Edoardo, followed their damp traces and also participates in this sport in the Italian second division. A sports family, they favored a basketball player, Mahamadou Diarra, who appeared in his local professional team, Petrarca.
Leoni is their only footballer. He made his debut for Padova, then in the third level, at 16, showing himself even earlier than Lessandro del Piero, the future Grand Italy who went to the same club as a teenager in the early 1990s.
One of Leoni’s role models around the time was Smalldini. No, not Paolo Maldini, whom he has never seen playing. For the uninitiated, “Smalldini” is the nickname granted to Chris Smalling during the head phase of English and what is in the event of Roma at the beginning of this decade. The other? One of his new teammates in Anfield, a certain Van Van Dijk.

Smalldini, hero of Leoni (Paul Kane / Getty Images)
Even in the midst of their current dysfunction, Sampdoria spotted Leoni early and took it over in February from last year. Pirlo, their coach at the time, quickly brought him to a first promotion team where Leoni, benefiting from certain injuries to more senior players, joined forces with Daniele Ghilardi, 22. Although Sampdoria has not increased that summer, Leoni and Ghilardi did it. One joining Parma, the other Verona. Ghilardi played more regularly last season, alongside the aforementioned Coppola. They timed more than 2,000 series per minute; Leoni, on the other hand, scratched a little over 17 in 17 appearances.
For the moment, Coppola is the only one to have been capped at the senior level, but none of the duo of Verona made the impression that Leoni made when he established in the Parma team under Fabio Pecchia, then stayed here when Cristian Chivu took over in February. Leoni stood out to defend UN-V-un and win duels in large open spaces.
This was the impression that he made in a short time, it was not a surprise when Chivu, a former central defender himself, expressed his desire to bring the child with him, where he replaced Simone Inzaghi there earlier this summer.
Although Leoni can improve in terms of cunning and edge in his own sanction zone, the dominant sense is that it has what it takes to associate Bastoni at the international level in the near future. Without a doubt, Calafiori and Alessandro Buongiorno from Arsenal in Napoli will have something to say about it. Both, unfortunately for them, are subject to injuries. Leoni, so far, is not.
By moving to Liverpool, the talented adolescent meets immediate and long -term needs; A combination that may make the ideal moment and place for it to develop and learns from one of his heroes, Van Dijk, now 34 years old.
Leoni means Lions in Italian. It is a surname that recalls one of the most famous ultrasounds (now disappeared) in Italy, the Fossa Dei Leoni in Milan, which results in the Lions den.
We will have to see if this is what Liverpool’s penalty surface becomes at the time of Leoni: a place to fear, a place where nobody is getting closer.
(Top Photo: Alessandro Sabattini / Getty Images)