Sebastiano Esposito

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sebastiano Esposito
Personnel
birthday July 2, 2002
place of birth Castellammare di Stabia ,  Italy
size 186 cm
position striker
Juniors
Years station
2011-2014 Brescia Calcio
2014– Inter Milan
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
2019– Inter Milan 5 0(1)
National team
Years selection Games (goals) 2
2017-2018 Italy U16 12 0(8)
2018-2019 Italy U17 20 (14)
2019– Italy U18 2 0(1)
2019– Italy U19 3 0(2)
1 Only league games are given.
As of April 26, 2020

2 As of December 9, 2019

Sebastiano Esposito (born July 2, 2002 in Castellammare di Stabia , Province of Naples ) is an Italian football player on the position of a striker . In the 2018/19 season, the multiple Italian junior national player at Inter Milan made the leap into the men's team with Serie A play , but is still regularly used in the club's own offspring.

His older brother Salvatore (* 2000) is also active in professional football and has been on loan at Chievo Verona in Serie B since summer 2019 ; the youngest of the three brothers, Francesco Pio (* 2005), currently (as of 2020) still plays in the offspring of Napoli . Her father, Agostino (* 1971), was also a soccer player; The former central defender and junior player at Napoli did not make it past appearances in Serie C and Serie D and is now active as a coach . Grandfather Salvatore, a now retired professor of literature and philosophy, was once active as a midfielder in amateur football. Father Agostino's brother-in-law, Gennaro, also appeared in the youth teams of Napoli. Salvatore Esposito , born in 1948, should not be closely related.

Club career

Via Brescia to Milan and first successes

Sebastiano Esposito was born on June 2, 2002 in the port city of Castellammare di Stabia on the Gulf of Naples and started playing football here. When he was about eight years old, he and his older brother Salvatore (* 2000) were discovered by Roberto Clerici (1942-2018), a scout who had worked for Brescia Calcio for decades , and were piloted to the Lombardy club with his brother. The parents then moved to Brescia with their four children and made it the center of their lives. When he was about nine years old, he was now registered with Brescia Calcio and from then on played in various age divisions of the club. After he had completed a few leagues by 2014, he was poached by the major club Inter Milan , about 90 kilometers away . From this time he was used for the Milanese in the club's own offspring and mostly acted extremely dangerous. From the 2017/18 season onwards, the then 15-year-old made regular appearances in the U-17 team, for which he scored nine goals in 20 league games this season. There were also two missions and one goal in the subsequent final round, in which he and his team had made it second behind the youngsters from Atalanta Bergamo . For Inter's U-17s, this final round was already over in the quarter-finals, in which the team entered. After a 2: 4 in the first leg, the team suffered a 1: 3 defeat against Juventus Turin in the second leg .

In the 2018/19 season, Esposito made a breakthrough in several respects and celebrated several successes. The now 16-year-old was extremely successful and dangerous for goals in the club's U-17 team, for which he had scored 16 goals in 14 league games and won 13 of his 14 appearances by the beginning of February. In the final ranking of the regular season he and his team were clearly eleven points ahead of their closest rival in first place in the table and then only entered the final round of the season in the quarter-finals. After victories over the youth of CFC Genoa in the quarter-finals and Atalanta Bergamo in the semi-finals, Esposito being involved in all three goals of his team in the 3-0 win in the latter game with two hits and an assist, the U-17 of Inter Milan drew into the finale. In the 3-1 win over the U-17 by AS Roma there on June 20, 2019, the center forward was the only goalscorer of his team with a hat trick and thus helped his team to the eighth Italian U-17 championship title in history. With this triumph, Inter Milan became record champions and thus replaced AS Roma, with which they had previously been named U-17 record champions with seven championship titles. Two days later, he and the team also won the Supercoppa Under-17 against last year's finalists Pordenone Calcio 6-2, where he was used in the first half and contributed two goals.

After he made the leap to the club's Primavera team in December 2018 and mostly only completed a few short appearances for them until February 2019, he was primarily used for the Primavera team from this time on and did not come back until the final round the U-17 squad. For the Primavera team he was used alternately as left winger, right winger and center forward and by the end of the season had a record of three goals from 13 league games, of which he was only on the lawn once for the full game. Despite three defeats at the end of the season, Esposito finished the season with his team in second place in the Campionato Primavera 1 table and thus secured a starting place in the final round of the season. In the semi-final against AS Roma, the 1.86 m offensive player made a brief appearance and contributed two goals in the 3-0 win of his team. In the final final against the youth of Atalanta Bergamo, which was lost 0-1, he also came to a nearly 20-minute mission. In addition, there were four appearances and two hits in the Coppa Italia Primavera this season , as well as a short appearance in the Supercoppa Primavera in February 2019.

Breakthrough to the professionals

On March 14, 2019, the young talent made it to the club's men's team for the first time and came from the bench in the second leg of the second leg of the 2018/19 UEFA Europa League against Eintracht Frankfurt from the 73rd minute as a replacement for Borja Valero, who was more than twice as old as Center forward to use. At 16 years and 255 days, he was the first player born in 2002 in a UEFA Champions League or UEFA Europa League game , and the youngest ever played by Inter Milan in a European competition. After Giuseppe Bergomi , who made his competitive debut for Inter Milan in the Coppa Italia in 1979, a month after his 16th birthday , he was the club's second youngest player to be used in a competitive game of the men's team. In addition, after Gabriele Zerbo , who made his debut in 2010, he was the second youngest Italian in the history of the continental competition, as well as the fifth youngest ever player in the competition after Willem Geubbels , Romelu Lukaku , Siebe Schrijivers and the aforementioned Gabriele Zerbo.

After Borussia Dortmund's interest in the offensive player, known as a child prodigy , was reported in June 2018 , Chelsea are also said to have expressed interest in signing the young player. Most recently, French media reported in March 2019 that clubs such as Paris Saint-Germain , Juventus Turin, Liverpool FC , Manchester United and Borussia Dortmund are courting the talented attacking player. From the 2019/20 season onwards , Esposito could be found more regularly on the professional bench, but was also used for the Primavera team at the same time. On October 23, 2019, he made his debut in a 2-0 home win over Borussia Dortmund in the UEFA Champions League , when he came on the lawn for Romelu Lukaku in the 62nd minute of the game , becoming Inter's second youngest Champions League debutant. When he came on for Lautaro Martínez in the 73rd minute in a 2-2 home draw against Parma Calcio three days later , the 17-year-old made his debut in Italy's top football league.

After that he was regularly on the substitute bench of the professionals and occasionally came on short appearances, including in the Champions League. After he came third in Group F with the Italians in the group stage of the Champions League and failed to advance in the competition, all third-placed players subsequently entered the sixteenth-finals of the 2019/20 Europa League . After he had been out with thigh problems for some time in February 2020, he represented his team in the second leg against Ludogorez Razgrad when his coach Antonio Conte replaced him in the 62nd minute for Romelu Lukaku. The team then made it to the round of 16 , but subsequently did not play any of their games due to the COVID-19 pandemic , with the game being interrupted for an indefinite period shortly thereafter. In the league, Esposito played, after he was mostly unused on the bench, on December 21, 2019 in a 4-0 home win over CFC Genoa for the full 90 minutes and steered the goal to 3 in the 64th minute of the game: 0 leadership. In February 2020, until the game was interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, he was only used in one other game as a substitute player and was mostly on the bench without being used. In the Coppa Italia 2019/20 he also appeared in two games and is currently ranked with his team in the semi-finals against SSC Napoli. Game operations were also temporarily interrupted here.

National team career

Esposito gained his first experience in a youth national team of the Italian Football Association in 2017, when he made his debut on October 17th under coach Daniele Zoratto in a 1-1 victory of the Italian U-16s against their colleagues from the Ukraine . In the following four international matches up to the end of the year he had contributed one goal in each. In February 2018 he completed three U-16 internationals again, in which he remained goalless. At the end of March he played two games against Germany's U-16s and scored one goal in each of the two games. A month later he played two more international matches against France's U-16s and scored a goal in both games. With eight goals from twelve internationals, he then ended his time in the squad of the Italian U-16 national team and was only a few months later for the first time under Carmine Nunziata for a use in the U-17 selection of his home country .

In his debut on September 7th in the friendly against Israel , he hit the 5-2 win for his team. After two more friendly international matches and one goal in the following days, he played the first round of qualifying for the U-17 European Championship 2019 between the end of October and the beginning of November 2018 and scored one goal and one assist in each of the three games. As a clear group winner with 13 goals scored and not a single goal, he moved into the elite round of qualification with the Italians without any problems. After a series of friendly games between December 2018 and February 2019 (5 games, 3 goals), in which he sometimes even acted as team captain, Esposito started the aforementioned elite round of the U-17 European Championship qualification in March 2019. In Group 1 with Austria , Romania and Turkey , Esposito scored two goals and three assists in three appearances and once again easily qualified with the Italians for the finals in Ireland in May 2019 . As a member of an Italian squad of 20 players, he then took part in the finals under coach Carmine Nunziata and, after winning Group D, as well as victories against Portugal in the quarter-finals and France in the semi-finals, made it into the final against the Netherlands . This was ultimately lost 2: 4; By then Esposito had made appearances in all six games of his team, as well as contributed four goals and two assists. With his four goals he was the second best goalscorer of the tournament behind the French Adil Aouchiche (9 goals) and was chosen as the best striker in the team of the tournament in the end. For the Italian U-17 selection, the attacking center forward had 14 goals and eight assists from 20 international matches between 2018 and 2019.

Also under Carmine Nunziata, Esposito made his debut on September 7, 2019 in an international match against Serbia for the Italian U-18 national team and scored the goal in the 17th minute to make it 2-0. Two days later he played again in a goalless draw against his colleagues from Serbia, before making his debut for Italy's U-19 national team about two months later . In the first round of qualifying for the U-19 European Championship 2020 , Esposito was able to clearly demonstrate his offensive strength. In the 2-0 win over Malta , as well as in the 2-0 win over Cyprus , he was able to score one goal and prepare the other for his teammate Alessio Riccardi . In the last group game against Slovakia , he was able to contribute two more assists in his team's 3-0 victory and thus easily lead his team into the elite round of the European Championship qualifiers, which will take place at the end of March 2020.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Esposito, quando il calcio è di famiglia (Italian), accessed on April 26, 2020
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Sebastiano Esposito secondo papà Agostino: "Ieri ho pianto di gioia. Ringrazierò per semper Roberto Clerici" (Italian), accessed on June 25, 2019
  3. ↑ Supercoppa Under 17: Inter, 6 gol al Pordenone e secondo titolo (Italian), accessed on June 25, 2019
  4. ↑ Is the next child prodigy coming to Borussia Dortmund? , accessed June 25, 2019
  5. ↑ Inter: Esposito piace a Chelsea e Borussia, dalla Cina possibile offerta per Brozovic (Italian), accessed on June 25, 2019
  6. ↑ Who is Sebastiano Esposito, the Inter prodigy wanted by Borussia and Chelsea , accessed on June 25, 2019
  7. ↑ Mercato PSG: Un jeune prodige sur les tablettes (French), accessed on June 25, 2019
  8. ↑ Inter Starlet Esposito: “Debut In The Champions League, Unforgettable Emotions” , accessed December 9, 2019
  9. ↑ Lautaro Martinez & Sebastiano Esposito To Be Inter's Strike Force Against Parma , accessed December 9, 2019
  10. ↑ Esposito: 'Lukaku a big brother' (English), accessed December 9, 2019
  11. ↑ Coronavirus - Europa League games with Italian participation canceled , accessed on April 26, 2020
  12. ↑ U17-EURO 2019: Team of the final round , accessed on June 25, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Esposito, Sebastiano
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 2002
PLACE OF BIRTH Castellammare di Stabia , Italy