The kid knows what he’s doing. He comes from Chadderton, in Greater Manchester, and trains in the United youth team. He plays as a wing-forward and has an unimpeded view of the goal. Yet the manager at the time, Ron Atkinson, decides to let him go, causing a lot of upset. “Let him go to the fourth division for free, to Crewe Alexandra, this David Platt”. The year is 1985. The mistake just made is sensational.
Because from that point on the boy will grow physically and technically, to the point of whetting the appetite of the First Division clubs. Aston Villa takes him, but he doesn’t give a damn about the atomic leap in category. Between 1988 and 1991 he will score 50 goals in 121 games and will also become the revelation of Italia ’90. David is an extremely prolific attacking midfielder, but that’s not all. He creates sideral quantities of assists. He comes to tie the game between defense and attack. Ball in the safe and brilliant intuitions.
So, in the summer of 1991, a phone rings from Bari. The axis is with Birmingham. The nest egg spent to secure the talent equal to 12 billion of the old lire. After all, the Premier League will only be born in 1992 and will still be a secondary championship for a while, compared to ours. Platt packs his bags. Puglia is engraved in his destiny. The season, however, against the legitimate expectations of the start, comes out crooked. Troubled. Platt 15 centers square between the championship and the Italian Cup, but the phosphorus that he injects into the club is not enough to save him from the muddy waters of Serie B. The fans are stunned, and so is he. One thing is certain: a thoroughbred like that cannot go down to purgatory.
Roberto Mancini then calls him: “Come on, come to Sampdoria, we’re waiting for you”. Nothing to be done, at least for the moment, because the enlightened Englishman decides to give in to the blandishments of Juventuswho buys him for 13 billion. Wrong choice, this time, but he can’t know it before taking the field. The fact is that at Juve the philosophy is different. Here only winning matters and the effervescent game is a gadget that can be done without. To achieve the objective, the agreements are clear: everyone must guard their own patch. I say goodbye to tactical freedom. Goodbye lethal incursions into the goal area. Platt is mortified by a positioning that dilutes his qualities and ends up becoming melancholic. Even if he participates in the Juventus success in the UEFA Cup, finding a starting shirt in the championship is difficult. Only 16 appearances and 3 goals. Leaving is more than necessary.
With a slight delay he arrives at Genoashore SampdoriaHere, he himself will admit, his best Italian seasons will materialize.
Under the guidance of Sven-Goran Eriksson he frees himself from penalizing defensive duties and blossoms again. He will lift the 1993/94 Italian Cup with his teammates and will score seventeen goals in two years, before returning to England, this time to Arsenal. An English campaign in Italy decidedly successful.