Six games were enough for Patrick Cutrone to already do better, in terms of goals, compared to the last Serie A championship. Then at Empoli, Cutrone concluded the 2021/22 season with three goals, while today in his hometown Como he already has four. He is the cover man of a team that has indeed exploited the assistance of the richest owners in Italy to build an already important and international team, but at the same time has not given up on those – like Cutrone, like Gabrielloni – to this shirt holds a lot.
Cutrone was born in Como. He took his first steps in Parediense, but at the age of nine he was already in Milan’s youth sector. In the Rossoneri he quickly rose through the ranks, perhaps too quickly. At 18 he was added to the first team, at 19 he made his debut and then in the following season – 2017/18 – he was permanently included in the group of greats, also scoring ten goals.
It is a very important score for those who are just starting out, for those who are just twenty years old, and for this reason for a few months the name of Cutrone and the adjective of predestined go hand in hand. The first call-up to the national team also arrived in March 2018: it seems to be the first of a long series. To date, however, the 16 minutes against Argentina remain the only ones in blue.
Once the 2018/19 season is over, Cutrone quickly begins his descent. Things didn’t go the same way at Milan the following season and when Marco Giampaolo arrived – quickly replaced in the following autumn by Stefano Pioli – the decision was made to sacrifice him in the face of an offer of 18 million euros plus bonus to the Wolverhampton. It’s an important investment, but in an unforgettable city – in the English West Midlands – Cutrone quickly becomes sad. The first year, counting all the competitions, he scored nine goals, the second only three and in January he was already back in Italy, on loan to Florentine.
Cutrone starts off strong in Florence, four goals in five months. By virtue of the January agreements he was also confirmed for the following season, but Fiorentina started very badly in the following September and in the transition from Iachini to Prandelli came Vlahovic’s exploit which definitively put Cutrone on the margins of the Viola project.
In January 2021 Cutrone is back in England: he will stay there for four matches and then he will be loaned to Spain, at Valencia. Nothing to do: seven appearances, zero goals and the following summer a new loan, this time toEmpoli. He plays more, but it’s not better. He scores very little and at that point Cutrone makes a drastic decision: he goes home. Even if in the summer of 2022 going to Como means getting back into the game in a team that at that moment is sailing in mid-table in the cadet series.
It was the choice that changed his career. In his second season at Como he scored 14 goals which pushed Fabregas’ boys towards promotion. He finds himself in Serie A after two seasons thanks to merits acquired on the pitch and now, after two years, he is among the great protagonists of our championship. In Como which has changed so much, almost everything, Cutrone is still at the center of the project: in the first six matchdays he scored four goals but – to paraphrase sporting director Ludi – it could have even been six.
With four other players Cutrone is currently the top scorer in Serie A. And who knows, Luciano Spalletti, coach of the national team, might also be thinking of him now On Friday he will release the list of players called up for the next matches against Belgium and Israel. Cutrone has finally found maturity, goals and the right serenity, but he is still 26 years old. In short, he has everything to be part of the new blue cycle.