The Best Striker in Italy Is...?

I did a podcast this week where I mistakenly thought Sarri was still the coach of Lazio (it’s Marco Baroni), because we were talking about seven Serie A teams and I failed to do the research to be on top of all of them. So annoying. And people complain about the pronunciations, which are impossible to execute properly across all the leagues and languages.

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to do football podcasts. It’s hard to know all of the things, all of the time.

ANYWAY, as penance for my sins, I wanted to name an old Serie A footballer and then talk about him.

Moise Kean.

Remember him? Broke onto the scene as a teenager at Juventus. Had an incident where fans were hurling racist abuse at him and his teammate Leonardo Bonucci basically defended the fans, saying Kean antagonised them with his celebration.

Then a high profile move to Everton. That flopped.

But his agent at that time was Raiola (Kean switched in 2022), and Mino’s group kept an eye on his career, with loans to PSG during the COVID season, and then back to Juve in Italy, which meant he avoided the Everton mess, but was somewhat mired in the lesser Juventus mess of the same era.

You’d be forgiven if you kind of forgot about Kean, assuming his career eventually landed him in Turkey or Mexico, or soon to be in MLS.

But actually… he’s the league leader in Expected Goals right now in Serie A.

And he’s still only 24 years old.

Because he debuted so early, it’s easy to assume he’s had a whole career and is on his way to retirement. But the reality is, he’s just entered peak age for strikers. And his performance isn’t a huge surprise, because there have been signs he could be great all along.

Here’s that PSG loan season, at age 21.

That’s pretty great, but it could also be written off because PSG were a super team and COVID was a weird year. Well, here’s what he’s doing down in Florence this season.

Yes, there are some bad shots in here, but there are also some REALLY good ones. If Kean finishes the season like this, it will be interesting to see if the hype machine hits full volume, or if the world is basically done with that. What’s clear is that he should NOT go back to Juve, as they almost killed his career the past couple of seasons, and it’s good to see him living the promise of those very early teenage years.

Moneyball is still about finding undervalued assets that help you win. And sometimes the asset is a guy who looked awesome as a kid, had a tough season or two, and everyone wrote them off as a bust before they were even in their prime.

On the other hand, sometimes busts stay busts. That’s why the job is so damned hard.

—TK

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