“I was a pain in the ass as a footballer,” Roberto De Zerbi once said. And, in a way, he was a player hopelessly out of his time: a pure No 10 coming through at the turn of the century, just as they were disappearing from the game.
A maverick and a thrill-seeker in a sport tending increasingly towards regimentation. Good enough to be at Milan without ever being good enough to play for them. Even when he dropped down to third-division Lecco on loan, he fell out with manager Roberto Donadoni. His ability with a ball was never in doubt; his ability to adapt always was. “I am a…
