On Tuesday, team-mates of a 22-year-old Genoa striker took to Twitter to wish him luck over a forthcoming move to Fiorentina, the €18m deal having been completed on Wednesday evening. That youngster has arrived in Florence with a famous surname, the son of former Argentina international Diego Simeone. And whilst his father has been busy Coaching Atletico Madrid, his offspring Giovanni has been busy creating his own story in Serie A.
Born in Madrid, the youngster moved back to Argentina with his father and joined the youth sector of River Plate at the same time as his father took on the position of Coach with the Primera Division side. “El Cholo” may have moved on to take over at San Lorenzo the following year, but his son – nicknamed “Cholito” – stayed on and earned a professional deal in 2011.
By the summer of last year it was time for the youngster to head on to bigger things. His father had won La Liga and Europa League titles with Atleti, but he would not follow him to Spain and instead joined Serie A with Genoa, the league already well-known to the family. Of course, Diego had spent time with Pisa, Inter and Lazio, winning a whole host of trophies with the latter.
Links with his famous father were of course mentioned in every Italian news outlet upon his arrival in Liguria, and the youngster had to prove that he was not simply a famous name. Starting out in a new league can be tough, but it only took Simeone until September to register his first goal in the Italian top-flight.
“Ever since I was a kid it was not an easy situation: everyone talked about me, saying that if I did play football it was only because I was Simeone’s son,” he told the official Serie A website. “But that wasn’t the case. I have always been a normal guy who wanted to play football, learn and get into the first team. You cannot compare us: I am Giovanni, he is my father.”
But the best was yet to come. A surprise home victory against five-time Serie A champions Juventus came at the end of November, and it was to be Simeone that stunned the league leaders with a brace inside the opening 13 minutes off the match. Max Allegri’s side never recovered from that early onslaught and Genoa shocked all who watched with an eventual 3-1 triumph.
“I can say that was the best day of my life,” Cholito admitted to Marca after the match. The press also raised the question of similarities between his second and his father’s strike in Lazio’s 1-0 victory over the Bianconeri under Sven Goran Eriksson back in 2000.
"Was my second goal similar to my father’s goal in 2000? Before the match against Juve my father told me: 'Son, you will definitely score,' Giovanni continued. “He was sure that I would score because we have the same blood. After the game we spoke over the phone and we both still could not believe it."
From that point on, he scored a total of 12 goals in an unsettled season for the Grifone, one in which the side finished 16th, having suffered 20 defeats. Under two separate spells with Coach Ivan Juric and a disastrous interlude with Andrea Mandorlini, Genoa lined up in a 3-4-3 or a 3-4-2-1, but at Fiorentina things will be slightly different.
New Viola boss Stefano Pioli plays a more attacking 4-3-2-1, with his new signing set to battle it out with Fiorentina youth product Khouma Babacar for the lone striker role. Nikola Kalinic looks increasingly likely to depart therefore – should Simeone win that race for a place in the starting lineup – he will find himself supported by a variety of attackers behind him.
The likes of Riccardo Saponara and Federico Chiesa will play in the supporting front three, along with new acquisition Valentin Eysseric and Gil Dias, who has arrived on loan from Monaco.
At Fiorentina, the conditions are perfect for the striker to create his own legacy. And he will only have to ask his father’s former international team-mate Gabriel Batistuta to find out what it will feel like at the Stadio Artemio Franchi if he does indeed come good.
