Dionisi, the first goals, Serie A: Frattesi finds “his” Sassuolo again

The carousel of emotions doesn’t stop for Davide Frattesi. Just enough time to savor his first outings with the new shirt and his debut as a starter for the Nerazzurri and it’s already time for another first time with a special flavour. On Wednesday evening, the Inter midfielder will face Sassuolo as an opponent who first launched him among the professionals and then allowed him to take flight, even conquering the national team. Frattesi will challenge for the first time that past that shaped him and, according to Simone Inzaghi’s plans, he could even do so from the first minute in order to give Mkhitaryan a rest.

breakthrough

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If this is the case, Frattesi’s legs will certainly not tremble, but there will be many emotions to contain in front of that black and green which for three years (also considering the first passage in Emilia in 2017) was a second skin. Because in Sassuolo, where he joined the Giallorossi youth team to become a professional, Frattesi left behind friends, colleagues and “mentors”, starting with Dionisi who saw in him the genes of the perfect modern midfielder. “He told me that he had decided to change formation to make the most of my aptitudes and he was right,” Frattesi told me last year after the change of role and the decisive transformation into an attacking midfielder, the same one that within a few months would have also catapulted him into the national team. That transformation, which took place last season, was the culmination of a long growth path that Sassuolo has always believed in, from the loans in Serie B to gain experience (in Ascoli, Empoli and Monza) until the return to base in 2021. to immediately become a fixed point in the median.

new challenge

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Yes because, starting from his debut in Serie A with the Emilians, Frattesi has practically never left the field: 36 appearances in the championship the first year, of which 35 as a starter, and 36 appearances also the following year, but with a loot of goals practically doubled (from 4 to 7). In the meantime, the first (deserved) calls to the Italian team in the summer and the first transfer rumours, with his name linked to practically every local big player. In Sassuolo they managed to resist the first approaches, but this summer they had to give in so as not to clip the wings of a Frattesi who was now ripe for the big leap. Many courted him, from Roma to Milan via Juve, but it was Inter who won and not just for a question of money. “My choice – he revealed a few days before signing with the Nerazzurri – was also influenced by the game and tactics”, because Frattesi aims to continue to grow and improve. The double for the national team at the beginning of September, the brilliant impact in the derby (including a goal) and the first outings for the Nerazzurri are signs that the path taken is the right one. We just need to make up for his timid debut as a starter, the one against Empoli last weekend, when Frattesi seemed to be under pace. The one against Sassuolo and his recent past could be the right opportunity to restart with momentum.