One October afternoon in 2009, Graziano Pellè and Luis Suárez found their paths entwined in a single minute of distilled excellence. First, Suárez turned up at the back post to thunder in Gregory van der Wiel’s cutback. Four-one to Ajax on the turf of Dutch champions AZ; game over.
So quick was substitute Pellè’s ultimately token response that his firm chest set-up and tumbling, right-footed overhead kick – no mean technical feat at 6ft 4in – were missed by the television cameraman. The two diverged once more, Suárez departing for the Premier League 15 months later and Pellè, never quite the right fit for AZ even during their period of success, reduced to foraging back in Italy’s Serie B by 2012.
They have just missed each other this summer although Pellè, 18 months older than Suárez but three-and-a-half years behind in making it to England, is catching up fast.
To what extent Rickie Lambert’s move from Southampton to Liverpool was predicated on his being a foil for the now-departed Uruguayan is moot but his replacement at St Mary’s shows a similar appetite to make up for lost time.
His progress had slowed after Louis van Gaal signed him for AZ on the back of an exuberant, Panenka-taking performance in the 2007 European Under-21 Championship, held in the Netherlands; four flickering years came to an end with a move to Parma, who farmed him out to the then second-tier Sampdoria, before a return to the Eredivisie uncorked what many had suspected was there.
Pellè had scored only 32 career goals when Ronald Koeman signed him for Feyenoord, initially on a season’s loan, in the summer of 2012. He was 27 and the reality was that things had to start moving. A thunderous header and clip over the goalkeeper against Nijmegen got things going; a nodded winner at Venlo suggested a hitherto unseen vein of form.
Then, exactly three years to the weekend since his party trick against Suárez and Ajax, he did something remarkably similar – controlling the ball with his knee before swivelling to volley in a 90th-minute equaliser in the Netherlands’ biggest derby. The possibilities suddenly seemed limitless. Such an assessment would have been close to the mark: Pellè went on to score 55 goals in 66 appearances.
“Graziano was a good player when we first brought him to Alkmaar but you have to remember that he was seven years younger than he is now,” Martin Haar, the long-serving AZ assistant manager, told the Guardian. “He played well for us but Moussa Dembélé and Mounir El Hamdaoui were already here and doing very well, Ari too. In the end, he was often on the bench and had to leave because he wanted to play and chances had been limited.
“Feyenoord brought him back to our league and something had changed. Graziano was now a personality in the team; he was a winner. When they played the ball to Graziano Pellè, nobody in the Dutch league could take it off him. He was so strong on the ball – keeping hold of it and bringing his midfielders and wingers into the game. His heading was excellent. He is a much more complete player now and understands how to handle situations in the penalty area and around the pitch; that’s the main difference between Graziano at AZ and at Feyenoord.”
It is impossible to avoid the comparison with Lambert, even if Pellè’s apprenticeship did not quite match the Liverpudlian’s school of hard knocks. Pellè’s early career with Lecce, right on Italy’s heel, was notable for decent enough Serie B loans at Catania, Crotone and Cesena, which went some way towards confirming the potential he had shown for Italy’s Under-20 team and booked the trip with the Under-21s that would set his relationship with the Netherlands in train.
During the same week in March 2006 when Pellè scored a winner for Crotone against Catanzaro, Lambert was on target for Rochdale in League Two against Bury and Macclesfield.
Neither player, at that point, appeared to have the momentum to complement his evident ability.
Watch Pellè now and, perhaps allowing a sideways nod to the Andy Carroll of 2010-11, there is only one current Premier League striker whose style his own resembles. Stand up a cross and Pellè will hang in the air, generating extraordinary power with his neck; there is the link-up play that Haar describes; there is also the occasional thunderbolt, with either foot but particularly his left, that completes the Lambert-shaped picture.
Pellè is Koeman’s man, that much is clear, but he seems the most a pretty direct replacement possible for the player Southampton’s three previous managers had set such stock in.
“What you see with Graziano now is that he makes other players better as well,” says Haar. “You can build confidently through the defence, through the midfield, and you know he will be there to receive the ball. He’s not quick – it’s better you don’t play him into space – but he is so strong around the box and can attack crosses from either side equally well.
“Now he has a new challenge. Every team in England is strong and the defences are all good in the air, strong in the tackle and aggressive. They can play football against you too. So I don’t know what will happen, but I think things will be OK for him at Southampton and he will work well with Dusan Tadic [the attacking midfielder signed from Twente] supporting him. He is a nice guy to work with and a very good character, and should fit in.”
Pellè cost €6m when Van Gaal brought him to the Netherlands; seven years later, Koeman has spent £8m to enlist his services. The figure will be a drop in the ocean when set against Southampton’s overall transfer yield this summer, but the vote of confidence in a player who has entered his 30th year remains eye-catching.
“This is going to be the best choice for me because the club wants to keep improving every year,” said Pellè on signing in July. The day he gave Suárez a run for his money five years ago in 2009 may have had a false dawn but he can legitimately say that his trajectory is firmly in line with Southampton’s ambitions.