Liverpool are closing in on the signing of Italian teenager Giovanni Leoni to boost their backline. We take a look at the 6-foot-5 defender and what he might bring to Anfield.
If there is one person worth listening to when it comes to defending, it is former Milan, Parma and Italy manager Arrigo Sacchi.
Even if his football wasn’t exactly the ‘Catenaccio’ playing style of the time, the legendary Italian coach managed the likes of Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi and Alessandro Costacurta, so he knows a thing or two about defenders.
Liverpool fans will be pleased to know that Sacchi approves of 18-year-old centre-back Giovanni Leoni, who is reportedly close to signing for the Premier League champions in a £26 million deal from Parma.
Writing in a column for Gazzetta dello Sport earlier this week, Sacchi said of Leoni: “I feel like the Reds would make a great coup by securing this boy, whom I followed with curiosity and interest in the second half of last season… I’m told he’s a decent guy, hard-working, humble and very determined.
“I’m convinced he’ll be the lynchpin of Italy’s defence for a long time. Some [have argued] that this young man has only made 17 Serie A appearances so far. ‘Isn’t that too few?’ ‘No’, I reply. Not too few, because Leoni has demonstrated the qualities needed to go far.
“If someone is good, if someone has their head in the right place, it’s immediately obvious. A person can have 200 Serie A games under their belt and still not possess the qualities Leoni displayed in his first season as a senior player. Talent knows no age.”
Liverpool’s need for centre-backs is clear. Virgil van Dijk is 34 years of age, Ibrahima Konaté‘s future is unclear with just a year left on his deal, and Joe Gomez has played just once in 2025 due to injury and is only just returning from an Achilles issue he suffered in pre-season.
It is very rare that Liverpool would take a punt on a young player with such a small data sample, which suggests the information they have on Leoni must be quite compelling.
He began his professional career at Padova, making his debut in Serie C at the age of just 16 years and three months in what was his only senior game for the club.
Leoni joined Sampdoria on loan in the 2023-24 season. He only played 12 Serie B games (nine starts) in the second half of that campaign, but he impressed. He made 1.8 interceptions per 90, the most of any Samp player that season (minimum 500 minutes), as well as the most clearances per 90 (4.2), and only six players in the whole of Serie B made more than his 2.6 headed clearances per 90. He also didn’t make any errors leading to opposition shots, which was impressive for a 17-year-old thrown into senior football.
That half-season was enough to convince Serie A side Parma to sign Leoni for around €5m in the summer of 2024.
Manager Fabio Pecchia waited until November to give Leoni his Serie A debut against Venezia and played him six more times before being sacked in February following a 1-0 home defeat to Roma. Christian Chivu replaced Pecchia and had almost immediate faith in Leoni, who played in 10 of the remaining 13 league games of the campaign.
One standout performance was Leoni’s showing in a 1-0 win over Juventus in April, when he won six of his seven duels and made seven clearances, the joint most in the game.
He also went toe-to-toe with Romelu Lukaku to great effect in a 0-0 draw with champions Napoli in the penultimate matchday of last season, regularly out-muscling the Belgian striker and preventing him from having more than one shot in his 80 minutes on the pitch.
Napoli’s Romelu Lukaku (L) fights for the ball with Parma’s Giovanni Leoni (R) (Photo by PIERO CRUCIATTI/AFP via Getty Images)Standing at 6-foot-5, Leoni is already built like the centre-back of any manager’s dreams. It’s therefore not too surprising that he does well in aerial duels; he won 63% of his in Serie A last season, while his 17 aerials won was the most in Serie A among players aged 18 or under.
However, it must be remembered that he is still just 18 and is far from the finished product. The fact he only won three of eight aerials in his own penalty area is potentially a reflection of that.
One header he did win was in the opposition’s penalty area and saw him score his solitary goal for Parma last season. His run following a short corner against Cagliari showed tremendous anticipation to get free, and he guided his header into the far corner of the net.
Leoni is more than capable of defending on the ground, too. He made 14 tackles last season, at least twice as many as any other player aged 18 or under in Serie A. He also won 59.1% of his ground duels (26 of 44), including five out of six in his own penalty area.
He will arrive at Anfield with more experience than most 18-year-old defenders. Barcelona’s Pau Cubarsí is the only centre-back younger than Leoni who played more minutes for a team in the top five European leagues than the Italian last season.
Looking at all players aged 18 and under, only four started more games than his 14 last season in Europe’s top five leagues.
The suggestion is that Leoni will immediately be a part of the first team at Liverpool, competing with Van Dijk, Konaté and Gomez for a place.
He will need to get used to seeing more of the ball under Arne Slot. Leoni averaged 59.7 touches and 46.3 passes per 90 in Serie A last season. By comparison, Van Dijk averaged 90.4 touches and 79.0 passes per 90, while Konaté averaged 77.9 touches and 66.6 passes.
His passing is solid enough, averaging an 88.7% success rate at Parma last season. That is arguably even more impressive when you consider Parma had the fourth-lowest average possession in Serie A (44.4%). Leoni didn’t see much of the ball but was generally comfortable with it when he did.
His long passes could perhaps do with some work. He only completed 14 of 44 long balls – passes that travel more than 32 metres – five of which went backwards, but then the accuracy of those can often depend on the movement and anticipation of the player on the end of them.
He may also need to carry the ball more often. Van Dijk (8.8) and Konaté (8.0) averaged more than twice as many progressive carries – carries that move the ball more than five metres upfield – per 90 in the league as Leoni’s 3.5 last season, but again that will be partly down to the difference in styles between Parma and Liverpool.
Judging a defender on data is famously difficult, but Liverpool are one of the biggest proponents of recruiting based on the numbers.
Speaking to Redmen TV, Italian journalist Daniele Fisichella described Leoni as “one of those defenders [who is] extremely good at reading the game.”
He added: “It goes back to the tradition of great Italian defenders, the likes of [Paolo] Maldini, who said: ‘If I have to make a tackle, then it means I have already made a mistake.’ Leoni is in that mould.
“He anticipates the play, he reads the game well, and therefore if you look at his statistics in terms of tackles made, they’re not huge. But that’s because his sense of position and his anticipation is so good. They help him to be in the right place at the right time.”
There may not be many numbers to look at when it comes to Leoni, but the English giants clearly feel the ones they’ve found are solid enough to take a leap.
Over the next few years, it will be up to Leoni to prove that it was a leap worth taking.
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Giovanni Leoni to Liverpool: Big, Young and Approved by Arrigo Sacchi Opta Analyst.
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