Ciao Marco Verratti.

The main reason for starting this blog is Marco Verratti. Yeah thats right, the nineteen-year-old wonder boy who just moved from newly promoted Serie A side Pescara to the newest giant in European football, PSG. To be honest when first hearing the rumours of Verratti moving to PSG rather than opting for a move to an Italian club, or heaven forbid staying with Pescara, I did not believe it for a second. I figured it was Pescara along with Verratti's agent Donato Di Campli trying to squeeze more money out of Juventus for the player. Pescara wanted 12 milllion Euro for the youngster and not a penny less. I did not doubt that PSG had offered this much for the player, but I did hope the youngster would make the smarter decision to stay in Italy rather than head for the money in Paris.

Donato Di Campli is Verratti's agent and soon after the youngster made the switch to the French giants he proceeded to blast Italian clubs for not putting up the money for the youngster. He also claimed that Italian clubs, especially the bigger ones never give young players a chance, and while he may be right on this I tend to look at it a different way. Only the best young Italian players get a chance to play with the big clubs at such a young age, and as much as I have high hopes for Verratti, the boy has never set foot on a Serie A pitch. Coming up through the Pescara youth system, making his debut at 16, and eventually leading Pescara to Serie A promotion this past year is a very nice story. However you cannot expect Italian clubs to put up such a big price for a player who has yet to play at the highest level, especially with the state of the economy in Italy at the moment. AC Milan has had to sell arguably their two best players (Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimovic) as they try to balance their wage structure, and Inter Milan is being ridiculed by Sao Paolo in Brazil for their ridiculous offers on midfielder Lucas. That leaves Juventus, who were at one point considered the frontrunners for Verratti. It was rumoured that Juventus had a deal in place where Marco would stay with Pescara for one more season before moving to the Bianconeri ahead of the 2013-14 season. This would have been a much better option for the youngster. He could have enjoyed his first season in Serie A hopefully playing every game for Pescara in the process to helping them avoid relegation. Another possible move would have been to Roma where former Pescara boss and the man who helped Marco truly find himself Zdenek Zeman is now managing. Instead Marco is heading to France's Ligue 1 with a team that is trying to best Manchester City's mind boggling spending. The number one thing I can tell you about PSG is that they want to win. They are not in the business of bringing youngsters along, and as much as PSG boss Carlo Ancelotti raves about Marco Verratti the boy still has a lot of work to do. With all this pressure on the young man it is hard for me to see him finding a place in the first team at PSG and a more likely scenario is that he won't see the pitch much at all and could possibly be loaned out by January.

Now with all this in mind I have to ask why Marco would make this decision and I tend to think it is not him making the decision fully. Mr. Donato Di Campli whom I mentioned earlier is Marco Verratti's agent. What we know about agents is that they want money. There is no way that any Italian club would have made this deal for a teenager who has yet to step on a Serie A field yet. Were talking big money here, 12 million Euro, with an extra 4 million available on bonuses as the transfer fee. This to go along with 2 million in salary. As an agent Di Campli did very well, he blasts the Italian clubs for not putting the money up for Marco but stays hush about how much money he is set to make from this deal. Di Campli has convinced Marco that this is the best move for his career when it is far from it. Staying in Italy, staying with Pescara was probably the best decision for him, and would have been best for the Nazionale. The Serie A lost someone it never knew in Mr. Verratti. We can only hope that he is able to stay on the right career path and become the star that all of us Azzurri fans were hoping for.