Mathias Olivera is (became) a talented long distance rider

In the summer of 2017 Mathias Olivera he was considered potentially one of the best left-backs in South America, among the best prospects in the world. He was fast, had more than delicate feet, had vision of the game and ability to insert, the skill of knowing how to give the ball to the attackers in the best way. Above all, he had played in an under 20 South American – his Uruguay had won the title – and an almost perfect under 20 World Cup. Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona, ​​Porto and Manchester United had followed him for a long time, but no one presented an offer. There was only one reason: the boy is strong, but he has several defensive gaps. He was bought by Getafe. Much to the chagrin of Edinson Cavani, at the time a great protagonist in Paris, who had sponsored his signing – well before the South American U20 – and that of another compatriot, the same age as Olivera: Federico Valverde (purchased the year before from Real Madrid).

Sometimes not even the recommendations on the merits of the champions are useful. Especially when there are prejudices about the ability to adapt to European football of South American full-backs who play attack and often forget to defend.

Virtually every major European team can boast of a noisy market failure in this particular case and the past has essentially taught one thing: if a full-back is not attentive to the defensive phase at twenty, it will be difficult to learn to be so later.

However, Mathías Olivera in Getafe learned to defend well, to give the same attention to when he or his team-mates have the ball and when the opponents have it. In five seasons (half on loan to Albacete in the Segunda División, the Spanish Serie B) he improved game after game, remodeled his game and himself a bit, so much so that José Bordalás, who coached him at Getafe between 2016 and 2021, at the end of the 2020-2021 season he commented: “Mathías had arrived here young and convinced he could break the wing, wild like some horses. Now the band still wants to break it, but he has learned that freedom is only useful if it is functional to everyone’s well-being. He let himself be tamed, he learned to be a real player ”.

Cristiano Giuntoli had been following him well before Bordalás’ words. He had tried to convince the president Aurelio De Laurentiis to buy it in the summer of 2021, but things didn’t go well. Then came the non-renewal of Faouzi Ghoulam, Axel Tuanzebe proved to be incapable of playing on the wing, moving Giovanni Di Lorenzo to the left was a pity, especially Benfica came forward for the Uruguayan. Giuntoli returned to the president and this time convinced him, also thanks to Luciano Spalletti’s enthusiasm for the possible arrival. Everything was concluded in January, but with an arrival date for the following summer.

Mathías Olivera at Napoli lived a season as a semi-starter, more than an alternative to Mario Rui, less of an immovable starter. You continued on your path of maturation and growth, you continued in your calm climb, as a talented long distance cyclist. Without haste, constantly smoothing out what was wrong, as she always did, insisting on doing what she had learned in Spain: the good of all is always more important than the personal good. On Sunday he managed to score. And not just any goal, the decisive one to kick off a party that Naples had been waiting for for thirty-three years. However, Salernitana striker Boulaye Dia stopped it and postponed it for the best moment.

Olives is the address book of John Battistuzzi on the (not necessarily) protagonists of Serie A. In the first episode there was talk of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Naples), in the second of Emil Audero (Sampdoria), in the third of Boulaye Dia (Salernitana), in the fourth of Tommaso Baldanzi (Empoli) , in the fifth by Marko Arnautovic (Bologna), in the sixth Gabriele Spangaro entertained you with Beto (Udinese), in the seventh by Christian Gytkjær (Monza), in the eighth Armand Laurienté (Sassuolo), in the ninth Sergej Milinkovic-Savic (Lazio ), in the tenth Sandro Tonali (Milan), in the eleventh Cyriel Dessers (Cremonese), in the twelfth Tammy Abraham (Roma), in the thirteenth Stefano Sensi (Monza), in the fourteenth Federico Baschirotto (Lecce), in the fifteenth Moise Kean (Juventus) , in the seventeenth Rasmus Hojlund (Atalanta); in the eighteenth M’Bala Nzola (Siena); in the nineteenth Federico Dimarco (Inter); in the twentieth Cyril Ngonge (Hellas Verona); in the twenty-first Riccardo Saponara (Fiorentina); in the twenty-second Perr Schuurs (Turin); in the twenty-third Ola Solbakken (Rome); in the twenty-fourth Riccardo Orsolini (Bologna); in the twenty-fifth Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Inter); in the twenty-sixth Rolando Mandragora (Fiorentina); in the twenty-seventh Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Milan); in the twenty-eighth Nemanja Radonjic (Turin); in the twenty-ninth Mattia Zaccagni (Lazio); in the thirtieth Maxime Lopez (Sassuolo); in the thirty-first Lazar Samardzic (Udinese).