Domenico Berardi, one of Italy hottest prospects to come
through in year. With a great eye for goal, hard working, a ferocious left foot
and good technique Berardi can play
anywhere in an attacking position, but prefers to play out wide on the wing,
but for Sassuolo, Berardi has played more centrally as a striker, and has excelled in this
position. Being top goal scorer for Sassuolo in his last 2 seasons ahead of
Simone Zaza, who has returned to parent club Juventus, to fill the void left by
Carlos ‘Carlitos’ Tevez, berardi will now be the main man at the forefront of
Sassulo’s attack.
Juventus where quick enough to see potential in Berardi and
in 2013, confirmed that they had signed the left footed player in a
co-ownership deal that saw Luca Marrone join Sassuolo along with a fee of €4.5
million, he stayed on loan for the remainder of the 2013-14 season, where he
scored 16 goals in 29 appearances and won the Serie A young player of the year.
He was also vital in helping Sassuolo stay in Serie A, scoring a hat-trick
against Sampdoria, where he slotted two penalties and scored all 4 goals
against A.C Milan in a well deseved 4-3 win. In doing so, Berardi became the
second youngest player to score 4 goals in a Serie A match, only behind the legendary
1938 world cup winner Silvio Piola and the first player to score 4 against A.C
Milan. Later that season he scored another hat-trick against Fiorentina as
Sassuolo avoided relegation. In the summer of 2014 Berardi stayed for another
season as the co-ownership was reined by both Juventus and Sassuolo.
In 2015, he once again scored another hat-trick past A.C
Milan and finished the 2014-15 season with 15 goals and 10 assists and was one
of the top providers in the league, furthermore a linchpin to Sassuolo finished a respectable 12th
place finish in Serie A. Berardi reached
30 league goals in only 59 matches, an astonishing accomplishment for the young
Italian considering it took Lionel Messi 70 matches to reach that landmark. In June
2015 it was announced that in favour of Sassuolo, the co-ownership had been resolved
for a fee of €10 million, and there is an option for Juventus to bring Berardi
back to Turin, the following season for a fee of €20 million.
All in all, Juventus/Sassuolo have a real talent on their
hands, not even 21 and he’s already scored 42 goals in 98 appearances, and if
he can keep his form up in the 2015-16 season to contend with the new arrivals
of attackers such as, Carlos Bacca, Mario Mandzukic and Mauro Icardi, Berardi
must be licking his lips and the prospect of maybe even winning the Serie A
golden boot (Capocannoniere.) and a call up to
the Italian National team, which isn’t that far away. If I where Antonio Conte
he would have already had his first full international cap, and be a vocal
point of the team for both the Euro 2016 and the 2018 World cup.
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