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Meet Fabrizio Miccoli, the man with cartoons on his arms, Diego Maradona’s earring and slits shaved into his eyebrows.
They may have missed out on Giorgos Karagounis, the Greek who might have put all hopes of a South Melbourne A-League franchise to bed, but Melbourne Victory have still managed to create headlines with the signing of a footballer so notorious that even the town of Corleone revoked his honorary citizenship.
According to reports from Fairfax over the weekend, Miccoli has signed a lucrative contract with the Victory.
He plays his best football as a second striker, and he hails from Italy, but that’s where comparisons with Sydney FC’s number ten Alessandro Del Piero end.
While ‘Ale’ is almost universally loved in Italy, Miccoli shot to infamy after mouthing off about one of Italy’s bravest law enforcers, Giovanni Falcone.
Anybody who doesn’t know about Falcone and his colleague Paolo Borsellino need look no further than Marco Turco’s fine documentary ‘Excellent Cadavers’. Falcone and Borsellino became martyrs in the fight against organised crime in Sicily, and their memory has quickly become something of a sacred cow in those parts.
Not that Miccoli needs any reminding. He’ll be fully aware of the man he called “filth” as he flies out of Palermo’s Falcone-Borsellino Airport on his way to Melbourne.
Miccoli’s decision to pack his bags for Melbourne will no doubt be greeted with enthusiasm here by football fans, but it is anybody’s guess as to why he chose far-off Australia, which is still considered by many Europeans as the arse end of the football earth.
Perhaps he feared being on the losing side in the much-anticipated Serie B Sicilian derby between the newly promoted Serie C side Trapani Calcio, and his old club, the recently relegated Serie A side Palermo?
Or maybe he confused the old guy with the top hat in the ‘Play Melbourne’ ad with Corrado ‘Junior’ Soprano, and thought, ‘well, I could fit in there’.
More likely he simply wants to be as far away from Italy as possible. There will be no congratulatory off-season tours of Italy for Melbourne Victory with Miccoli in their ranks.
Who knows, the man the Italian press once dubbed ‘the new Del Piero’ might fit in well at the A-League’s biggest club. He’ll certainly be different.
Unlike the Victory’s departing playmaker, Marcos Flores, it’s hard to imagine Fabrizio sharing selfies or creating cute giraffe hashtags on Twitter.
He’ll also provide a nice addition to the next ‘Big Blue’ between Mebourne Victory and Sydney FC. The wanna-be Ultras in the home bay at Etihad Stadium will no doubt secretly be pleased that their star man has a bit of street cred, unlike Sydney’s nancy boy family man in the velvet blue suit.
With the A-League still yet to fully integrate itself into the national sporting consciousness, any publicity remains good publicity.
One thing’s for certain, Melbourne Victory won’t be pulling any funny business with his wage payments, ala the Central Coast Mariners. Miccoli is not one to forgive and forget his debtors.
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