Melbourne City have finally found their key goalscorer, and potentially the best international signing for the 2015-16 A-League season, in Uruguayan Bruno Fornaroli.
Many, if not most, football fans in Australia didn’t know who Fornaroli was and when he first signed, and thought another Melbourne City may have brought in another striker set to fail.
It could have been another case of Michael Mifsud, the Maltese international signed by Melbourne Heart in 2013-14 who only made 14 appearances and scored just the one goal.
However, it seems that Fornaroli has broken the mould of strikers underperforming for City (nee Heart), which included David Villa, to an extent, Josh Kennedy and other players such as Eli Babalj.
Currently, David Williams is Melbourne City’s highest goalscorer with 21 in 92 games, having played for the club since 2011. Fornaroli is already on 12 goals in 15 games and leading the A-League goalscoring this season, two goals ahead of rival Besart Berisha from Melbourne Victory.
Fornaroli started his professional career at Nacional, Uruguay in 2008 and scored ten goals in 12 appearances.
Since then, up to the start of his career at Melbourne City, he scored 13 goals in 97 appearances. No wonder many City fans were nervous about their club’s decision to sign him on a two-year deal.
Yet, the versatile forward has surprised even the most optimistic of City fans by dominating the league with his strength, pace, positioning and skill on the ball.
He is hard to describe as a traditional striker, but can act as a target man due to his ability to hold up play and position himself next to defenders. He contests high balls despite the likelihood of losing the contest due to his average height.
Another key strength is his ability to turn off the line of the defence and beat the offside trap, rarely seen by strikers in the A-League.
Fornaroli isn’t massive, tall or amazingly quick, but his ability to acclimatise to the level of the A-League, described as many players as extremely physical, has been a big asset to Melbourne City. They have finally found the striker and key goalscorer they’ve been looking for.
As long as Fornaroli and City’s other key player Aaron Mooy stay injury free for the second half of the season, then City may well have their first real crack at silverware.
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