Serie A has traditionally looked to South America as a breeding ground for talent but with all of Europe now alert to the potential there, many Italian clubs have a logical fondness for the Eastern European leagues.
Italian football has seen many big money moves directly from the Eastern European leagues such as those of Andriy Shevchenko to AC Milan and Marko Pjaca to Juventus. However, one of the biggest selling points for the rest of the league is the potential to uncover players with high potential on the cheap by looking straight to these leagues, which have struggled in recent times to make an impact on the coefficient rankings.
Pavel Nedved’s move to Lazio from Sparta Prague in 1996 is the high benchmark of looking east as the midfielder who signed for around €1.7 million went on to win the Scudetto in the capital and then again with Juventus. Zbigniew Boniek became the first Pole in Serie A when he joined Juve in 1982 for €1.45m from Widzew Lodz after impressing at the World Cup, and he picked up Serie A and European Cup honours before moving to Roma.
More recently, Brescia pulled off an inspired bit of business as they signed a 17-year-old Marek Hamsik for €500,000. We’ve since seen him go on to captain Napoli and his recent goal against Palermo moved the Slovak above Diego Maradona in the Partenopei’s goalscoring charts. Fiorentina showed big faith in Balkan players as they spent €10.75m on Stevan Jovetic in 2008 and €8m on Adem Ljajic in 2010 with both coming from Partizan.
Moving to the 2016-17 season, Sampdoria and Bologna have both looked to Eastern European with some success.
The Rossoblu added Ladislav Krejci from Sparta Prague and Adam Nagy from Ferencvaros. The Czech winger is not the youngest at 24 but he looks like the finished project already with his ability to beat a man down the left and pick out a final ball and he has three assists from four starts. His ability to get one over Serie A defenders was on show in the 2015-16 Europa League when he scored as Sparta turned Lazio over 3-0 in Rome.
Classy midfielder and Hungary’s great hope Nagy moved to Emilia-Romagna for just €1.5m after catching the attention of bigger clubs at Euro 2016. The relatively lightweight former futsal player has already shown himself to be a supremely intelligent 21-year-old with the instincts needed to intercept passes as he moves constantly and keeps play moving from a deeper role while his attributes also suit box-to-box play.
Moving up north to Liguria, Samp have also enthusiastically embraced the Eastern European market after selling their bigger names such as Roberto Soriano, Lorenzo De Silvestri and Joaquin Correa for profit.
New coach Marco Giampaolo was brought in to get the most out of less well-known players. In conjunction with that strategy, the Slovak defender Milan Skriniar arrived from Zilinia plus the Polish midfielder Karol Linetty from Lech Poznan and both have looked promising in early fixtures. The Czech forward Patrik Schick formerly of Sparta and Bohemians has come on three times from the bench and all of the new arrivals are younger than 22.
Linetty was previously linked with the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and the versatile midfielder has impressed with his uncomplicated style of play, tackling, passing and ability to dribble. The Blucerchiati were already showing faith in the Slovakia Under-21 international David Ivan during the 2015-16 season as the former Nitra youth player made 21 appearances and he’s since moved to Bari to further develop in Serie B.
Across the city, the 26-year-old Darko Lazovic is on an early run of form for an impressive Genoa side after signing from Red Star Belgrade during the 2015-16 season. The winger has been earning high ratings for his ability to cross and pick killer passes for Ivan Juric’s side after previously being a bit-part player before finishing his first season strongly and that momentum doesn’t appear to have escaped him.
Looking back to more established Serie A faces, Torino were also able to benefit from picking up talent from Red Star when they signed the Serbia defender Nikola Maksimovic in 2013 as he became a key player before his acrimonious transfer to Napoli this season.
The Partenopei are home to many of the most exciting young Eastern Europeans in Serie A after they signed Piotr Zielinski from Udinese following his loan with Empoli and the Croatian prospect Marko Rog from Dinamo Zagreb.
Zielinski pays testament to why the Eastern European market is so attractive to Italian sides after the traditionally shrewd Zebrette signed him for only €100,000 before raking in a reported €16m with his move to the Stadio San Paolo after his form for Empoli and reported interest from Liverpool saw his value skyrocket.
For as long as Serie A struggles to redefine its status in comparison to the Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga, the mid-table clubs will struggle to attract youngsters ahead of the competition. However, the trend of looking at the smaller Eastern European leagues shows that it is still possible to buy good players for reasonable money. Traditional elites like Inter can still afford the time and money needed to sign the ‘next Neymar’ in Gabriel Barbosa but few else can.
The likes of Nagy and Krejci can push Bologna into aiming for something more than just keeping out of Serie B. Zielinski’s career path has seen him add funds to to the Udinese coffers, help keep an unfancied Empoli in the league and now he adds depth to Napoli’s title aspirations. These players are the ideal low-risk investments which Italian teams dream of these days.
