As the Lazio striker enters the twilight of his career, Jacob Smalley assesses the career of one of the best number 9s Serie A has seen in recent years.
In modern times, the number of true number nines has dwindled and the position has been perfected by just a few.
The evolution of the role has seen the likes of Luis Suarez, Sergio Aguero and Carlos Tevez usher in a different style of forward. Even Samuel Eto’o and David Villa’s games evolved from playing as a ‘nine’ into a wider and more dynamic attacking role.
Of course, you can make a case for Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Robert Lewandowski and now Erling Haaland keeping the role alive in their own way, but one man who has performed the role so efficiently and so effectively, yet without any real fanfare outside of Rome.
His name is Ciro Immobile.
Without playing for the recent Scudetto winning sides of Juventus (he played just a handful of games), Inter, Milan or Napoli, he has amassed 200 Serie A goals and boasts a career goal average of better than one goal in every two matches.
As he turns 34, it’s time to put some respect on the name of a player who really is one of Serie A’s modern greats.
From humble beginnings in Serie C with Grosseto, Immobile was spotted by Juventus, where he would manage just five appearances across league and cup competitions. These brief cameos were complemented by various loans in the second tier.
One loan spell in particular would go down in history.
After largely barren spells at both Siena and Grosseto, legendary Bohemian coach Zdenek Zeman decided Immobile was the man to spearhead Pescara’s Serie B promotion tilt alongside the likes of Lorenzo Insigne and Marco Veratti. By Christmas Insigne had scored 14 goals and Serie A side Genoa acquired half of his registration rights from Juventus with an eye to the following season.
Excelling under Zeman’s ridiculously brilliant gung-ho attacking philosophy, Immobile managed to score a league best of 28 goals in a title winning campaign that saw Pescara score an impressive 90 times, twenty seven goals more than the next best in Reggina.
Now proven in the second division and just turned 22, the challenge for Ciro was to prove himself in the top flight.
After completing his loan spell at Pescara, Immobile was thrust into a starting role with one of the grandest clubs in Italy. Things didn’t quite go to plan. A meagre five goal haul in 34 matches across all competitions prompted Genoa owner and serial manager eater Enrico Preziozi to make a quick sale to Juventus’ cross town rivals Torino.
It was in the burgundy colours of the side coached by future Italy coach Gian Piero Ventura that we saw the true explosion of a player who combines attacking threat with a tenacious work rate alongside a capacity to score all types of goals.
Twenty two Serie A goals during the 2013/14 season in which Immobile struck up a very strong understanding with fellow attacker Alessio Cerci, saw the former Juventus man pick up the first of his four Capocannonieres to date. To bounce back from the disappointment of his stint at Genoa to beat the likes of Carlos Tevez, Antonio Di Natale and Gonzalo Higuain to be the league’s leading marksman caught many by surprise and the attention of Jurgen Klopp, who wanted to give the Italian striker a chance in the Bundesliga.
Following the conclusion of Italy’s disastrous 2014 World Cup campaign, in which Immobile made his international debut, Klopp’s Dortmund brought him to Germany to fill the gap left by Robert Lewandowski’s transfer to Bayern. The bold move made people around Europe sit up and take notice of the young Italian striker as many considered the Italian league’s best days to be in the past.
Immobile endured just a single season in the yellow and black of Dortmund in what proved to be a season of turmoil as Klopp’s side bombed and were at one point in a relegation dog-fight. Revered club legend Klopp left the manager’s hot seat and, with just three league goals to his name, despite success in cup competitions in which he scored a further seven, Immobile was branded as a failed experiment, from which his reputation has never quite recovered
An equally dim spell at Sevilla reinforced the idea that the striker, despite his outstanding Serie A record, isn’t of world class quality. His failure abroad and his relative modest international record doesn’t quite match up to his record-breaking exploits at Lazio and Torino.
As we enter the twilight years of Ciro Immobile’s career, his time in Rome with the Biancocelesti will surely be seen as his pièce de résistance.
After signing him for less than €9m and rescuing him from his foreign nightmare, Lazio have been repaid with three Capocannoniere winning seasons, including equaling the record for most goals scored in a Serie A season in the three points for a win era, a Coppa Italia and two Supercoppa wins.
The current Biancocelesti skipper and eighth all time leading Serie A scorer may have a less than one in two record on the international stage and might have struggled on the continent a decade ago, but to score over 200 goals for Lazio, win the Capocannoniere at Torino and excel under Zdenek Zeman, he deserves greater recognition and praise.
A case can certainly be made for naming him the best striker Serie A has seen over the past decade.
It’s time to put some respect on his name.