L’Udinese ha accettato l’offerta della Fiorentina per ingaggiare l’attaccante Lorenzo Lucca, dopo aver raggiunto un accordo sui termini.
L’Udinese ha accettato l’offerta della Fiorentina per ingaggiare l’attaccante Lorenzo Lucca, dopo aver raggiunto un accordo sui termini.
Fiorentina’s purported move for Moise Kean has been largely met with shrieks of dismay from fans, but Daniele Pradè has quieted the uproar a bit by promising to bring a second striker to Florence, giving Raffaele Palladino another option up front. That’s obviously resulted in approximately 80 forwards linked to the Viola in the press, but the one we’re choosing to believe in for now is Lorenzo Lucca.
The 23-year-old is already quite well-traveled, having spent a year at Ajax and moved all over Italy in his brief career. He broke out with 13 goals for Palermo in Serie C at the tender age of 17, prompting Pisa to grab him, and scored 6 in his first 7 appearances in Serie B for them but failed to notch another for the rest of the season. That was still enough for Ajax to pounce, but his time in Amsterdam (as their first-ever Italian player) didn’t work out, as he played just 136 minutes (still scoring twice) for the senior side. Udinese swooped in and grabbed him on loan, and he finished the year as their top scorer with 8 goals and 4 assists, leading the Bianconeri to pay €10 million to make the move permanent.
It’s easy to look at his career and see a guy who doesn’t score enough, but that ignores the context. Lucca scored or assisted a third of Udinese’s goals; it wasn’t that he wasn’t productive individually so much as that the whole team wasn’t designed to light up the scoreboard. Put him in a better team with more consistent service and he’ll likely respond with a much more impressive haul. It’s worth remembering, too, that Udinese lacked its most creative forward all year in Gerard Deulofeu, who would’ve likely made Lucca’s life a lot easier.
A useful thing to look for in evaluating a striker is that they 1) have a trademark goal, a consistent way that they score, but 2) don’t entirely rely on that approach. checks both boxes: at 2.01 meters/6’7, he’s obviously a threat from crosses, but he’s surprisingly agile for a man his size and loves working the channels, using his strength to hold off opponents and driving forward to cross it. He’s also got a decent poacher’s instinct for loose balls, and his length means he can reach more of them in the box. He also scores the occasional Zlatanesque volley, which is a lot of fun.
He’s still a bit unpolished, of course. His focus wavers—caught offside 21 times (4th-most in Serie A), committed 52 fouls (9th-most), completed under 60% of his passes—and he’s prone to looking a bit oafish every once in awhile, although that’s more down to his size than anything else. His inconsistency makes a bit more sense, though, when you look at his career: he’s changed teams every year since he was a teenager, so a more stable environment could well see him blossom. It’s easy to imagine him serving as the focal point of attacks with Nico González and Lucas Beltrán running off him.
To make that happen, Fiorentina will have to pay €15 million, according to journalist Gabriele Caldieron. Daniele Pradè is, as you’d expect, trying to pay €12 million and set up the remaining €3 million in bonus payments, but with an agreement this close, the deal will likely get over the line at some point, especially since Lucca’s agent is Giuseppe Riso, who also reps Palladino and thus has a very good relationship with the Viola brass. It’s a relatively small fee for a promising and productive young striker who’s been called up for Italy in March (but missed out due to injury).
The only fly in the ointment are whispers that Fiorentina will have to sell M’Bala Nzola before closing for Lucca, and that could get tricky. The Angolan is under contract for another 3 years and selling him could get tricky, although interest from Cagliari and Lecce could accelerate things. Hopefully, Pradè won’t mind selling at a slight loss, as the chance to grab a striker like Lucca doesn’t come along too often.
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