Antonio Di Natale is the best Udinese player. That is an irrefutable fact.
Sure, one may argue that he is not the best player to have played for Udinese, but as an “Udinese player” – a true Little Zebra, rather than someone who happened to be signed with the club—there is no one comparable to Totò.
The 36 year old Neapolitan joined Udinese in 2004 and was named captain in 2007.
He won the 2011 Pallone d’Argento, earned the title of Serie A Top Scorer for two consecutive years (2010, 2011), was named the 2010 Italian Footballer of the Year, and has been “called up” to the Serie A Team of the Year three times.
He has scored 185 goals—rounding out the all time Top 10 Goal Scorers in Serie A—averaging .483 per game and is currently ranked second for Top Contemporary Goal Scorer (48 goals behind Roma’s Francesco Totti, who is ranked second of all time).
He acts as a community leader, giving both his time and financial resources back to the city of the Udine and has supported various external philanthropic endeavours.
He single-handedly/footedly made Udinese a household name, leading the club up the table to secure European spots and and winning seemingly impossible games.
And, on more than one occasion, he has made grown men cry.
In short: Antonio Di Natale is an all-around righteous dude.
Incontestably, Di Natale has been a success at Udinese; however, the same cannot be said for his international career. For all he’s achieved in Udine, his international record reflects as being mediocre, at best.
The highlights (and lowlights) of that career include:
– A crucial missed penalty in the 2008 Euro during the quarter-final against Spain, the eventual winners of the tournament.
– A goal against Slovakia during the 2010 World Cup, where Italy suffered a 3–2 defeat, knocking them out of the tournament in the lowest spot in the group.
– Scoring the opening goal for the Italian team during the 2012 Euro Cup against Spain (which ended in a 1 – 1), the only goal scored on Spain/Iker Casillas the entire tournament.
Considering the above, his Azzurri curriculum vitae seems a lot less padded than his Udinese one, which then begs the question: what exactly factors into this depressing dichotomy of Di Natale?
What is meant by that is, compared to his contemporaries (both active and retired), Di Natale certainly does not follow the same structure of distinction as his peers. Measured against the likes of a Francesco Totti or a Gianluigi Buffon how can Di Natale even be considered in the same (metaphorical) league? And, even after he retires from Serie A, will Di Natale—and more importantly, should Di Natale—be remembered as a lasting legacy like a Paolo Maldini or a Fabio Cannavaro?
The common theme that the above mentioned all share—and what Di Natale regrettably lacks—is a distinct fluidity of success that runs/ran between both club and country. In other words, they are Scudetti winners, European title winners, and World Cup winners, with multi-platform bragging rights.
To compare Di Natale at Udinese to Totti at Roma, Buffon at Juventus, Maldini at Milan, or Cannavaro at Inter seems almost a mockery; for everything that Di Natale has been successful at, he has had to solely rely on himself, in contrast with the others, who rely just as much on their teams for their internal success.
And with that, he is faced with the ultimate catch-22: Di Natale is great because he is with a “small team,” however, he will never be great because he’s with a “small team.”
Had Di Natale played for Roma, Juventus, Milan, or Inter, like Totti, Buffon, Maldini, or Cannavaro would this discussion even be necessary?
Or, would the discussion go two different ways: he would a living legend because he got the support of a big club or he wouldn’t be a living legend because he got lost in the shuffle of a big club?
Aye, there’s the rub.
Consider a more tangibly, but still hypothetically, alternative. Let us say, what would happen if we were to evaluate a theoretical Cannavaro, as a controlled variable, instead? Would Cannavaro still be the Cannavaro he is today had he never left Parma? Would he have still been chosen as the national captain, had he had continued success at Parma? And would his name be pre-printed en mass on national jerseys, as much as on Parma?
Or, are these thoughts too ludicrous to even consider?
This is, of course, not to compare the talent and skill levels of one player to another; rather it is to compare the measurable values of success as individuals, and then to further dissect what factors into that core understanding of “success.”
In short, everything can be compartmentalized into three basic questions, with multiple yes/no answers:
1) Will Di Natale be regarded as one of the greatest Italian players of all time?
2) Will Di Natale be regarded as one of the greatest Serie A players of all time?
3) Will Di Natale be regarded as one of the greatest Udinese players of all time?
It is that last question that dictates the other two. In a way that no other player has really experience, Di Natale’s club has inevitably doomed him.
It’s impossible to think – let alone theorize – about a Di Natale without Udinese, much more so than an Udinese without Di Natale. However, one thing is for certain, Udinese has both blessed and cursed Totò; creating a liminal space as a force for, and against, his everlasting greatness.
