Until Juventus plucked him from relative obscurity last year, the name Federico Gatti meant very little in the upper echelons of Italian football.
Fast forward and the former bricklayer, window fitter and supermarket worker is now the defender around which a revolutionary Juventus can build.
Determination is a word that haunts Gatti.
While others were raised through academy drafts, he worked shifts at various jobs before training and playing for amateur teams in the evenings.
“I’ve had a lot of jobs, I’ll never forget that past,” he explained last year.
Federico Gatti’s fairytale rise to Serie A has made him a star for Juventus ever since
He was picked up from Frosinone, but before 2020 he was an amateur player in lower leagues
It gives me the strength to keep going in difficult times. I did a little bit of everything. I worked in supermarkets, a window cleaner, a contractor. Fortunately, things went well with football in the end.’
His fairytale rise is akin to something written by the novelist Carlo Collodi, one that should serve as an inspiration to players throughout the Italian football pyramid.
Gatti was born in Rivoli, a province of Turin, on June 24, 1998, and although he spent a stint as an attacking midfielder in Torino’s academy, it was in amateur football that he really cut his teeth.
His father was unemployed and so he had to be the source of income, taking on numerous jobs to pay bills while also refusing to give up on his dream of making it as a footballer.
Gazzetta dello Sport describes how Gatti, a midfielder growing up, had posters of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard on his wall as a youngster.
Those were players in England that he idolized and was eager to emulate.
But his true calling, the coaches would soon realise, was in defense and as he was the tallest player when he was loaned out to Pavarolo in 2017-18, he was pushed back into a new role in which he has since flourished.
Just three years ago, Gatti contested Serie D with Verbania having previously played between the non-professionals at Promozione and Eccellenza, earning salary from his job as a mason.
He was a bricklayer, glazier and supermarket clerk to pay the bills outside of football
His move to Juventus took place in January 2022 and he hasn’t looked back since
Turning professional in 2020, he signed for Serie C side Pro Patria for around £88,000, and would lay the foundations for a meteoric two-year rise at Juventus and European football.
Gatti’s football life is dominated by the dreams of his grandfather, who died in December 2022 and to whom he dedicated his goal against Sporting Lisbon on Thursday night.
His grandfather always wanted to see him play in Serie A but never got the chance and that motivation is a real driving force for the 24-year-old.
It wasn’t until he was thrust into a real roll of the dice in the national team’s line-up – he hadn’t played a single minute in Serie A when he was called up – against England that his name began to spark interest.
Gatti had to defend Harry Kane and accepted the challenge and it was then that Juventus understood that they had bought a really reliable player from Frosinone. It cost about £8.8 million and today its value has already tripled.
He dedicated his goal against Sporting Lisbon to his late grandfather, who always dreamed of watching him play for a Serie A club as big as Juventus.
After many months of internship with Leonardo Bonucci, Gatti is now a regular at Juventus and dreams of becoming the team’s future captain.
Born in 1998, he is young but not very young anymore and his career could mirror that of Moreno Torricelli, who grew from carpenter to full-back for then European champions Juventus.
Against Sporting Lisbon, Gatti was the man of the match: the best in defense and also the most excited and thrilled in celebrating his first goal for Juventus.
His current salary is less than €400,000 (£353,000) a year and he is Juventus’ lowest-paid player, but it seems inevitable that it will boom with the trajectory he is on now.
When he arrived in Turin, the hierarchy was clear: he would be the fourth-choice defender.
But today he is the unshakable object of the three-man defense after overtaking Daniele Rugani, finding the right chemistry with Gleison Bremer and finally relegating Bonucci to the bench.
His future is full of dreams and after the goal against Sporting Lisbon nobody wants to crush them. His fairytale run to this point is one for the ages, but for Juventus there are still more chapters to be written.