Once upon a time there was Josè Altafini: he entered the last part of the match and found a way to make himself useful, either with a goal or with an important play. Now there is Edon Zhegrova, a 26-year-old Kosovar with Albanian citizenship who is not at the end of his career like the old Josè of the time but who does not (yet) have the ninety minutes in his legs having just returned from a very long period of inactivity. And so Spalletti and Juventus use him for what he can: they are given twenty-thirty minutes and they expect concrete results. Something that the former Lille player often manages to bring home: in Pisa, on Saturday evening, he started Kalulu’s opening move, then personally looking for the goal and in any case changing the game with the talent of someone who knows he has non-trivial plays in his hands.
The Juventus fans quickly fell in love with him, receiving in exchange adrenaline shots and that pinch of madness that are increasingly rare in today’s football: «He has the fuse in his head», Spalletti praised him, showering him with compliments a few days after instead explaining that «he can’t do the defensive phase in a certain way, it’s up to us to take him to the last twenty meters of the pitch where he can help us change the matches». Said and done, exactly. Because if you don’t have someone like that, you would like to have him: «He has three-dimensional glasses, because he can see what’s behind them», Spalletti again. Translated: the ball put where many others don’t see anything thanks to a confidence with the ball that allows him with an almost magical touch to send the defender out of time for what the former Italian coach called a ‘zeppetta’.
«It’s not something that can be coached – explained Zhegrova – it’s simply part of my way of playing. I thank the coach for giving her a name.” Coming soon, again, on these screens. And maybe not just in the last half hour of the race: the new challenge was needed.
