Genoa – To talk about a performing footballer, we usually look for his “secrets”. In the case of Ronaldo Vieira the first secret is in the sunlight, restored health. The one that allows you to train well, which leads to optimal competitive condition and therefore to continuity of performance. The midfielder played from the first to the last minute in the last three championships in a row, with Cosenza, Sudtirol and Palermo. It seems like an obvious statistic, but for English it isn’t. It hadn’t happened to him for four years, since his second season with Blucerchia, when the series was 5: between 5 October and 4 November, Verona, Roma, Bologna, Lecce and Spal. At Bentegodi Di Francesco’s last on the bench, and then Ranieri’s first four. A series of 3 consecutive ones also appears three years ago at Verona, October 2020, but in that case two in the championship (Genoa and Juventus) and then Venice in the Italian Cup. Before stopping due to a new muscle problem.
To explain Vieira’s Sampdoria route and understand that external amazement that is accompanying his latest performances, we must necessarily take into account the many injuries that have affected him. Since he arrived at Sampdoria, 31 matches have been missed due to physical problems (source Transfermarkt), out of 169. The longest period, in 2021, from August to December due to a hamstring injury. He had fared worse in Verona, 30 missed due to injury out of 38 overall. And also in his loan to Turin last season: 10 out of 19. Both in Verona and Turin, Juric sat on the bench and the feeling is that his intense training methodologies were not suited to Vieira’s muscles. His physical condition was also at the origin of the failure of his transfer to Sheffield in the summer of 2021: Vieira was sent back after the visit, a scar from an old muscle injury was unconvincing.
This season also started slowly. In the retreat in Livigno he never trained in a group, “managed” by the health area, which evidently took into account his troubled second part of the season in Turin. Not called up for Terni and for the first time at Ferraris with Pisa, first appearance with Venezia, first as a starter at Parma, then always as a substitute until the last three starts. And every day Vieira undergoes the accident prevention work required by the performance area. Among other things, he has been suffering from a problem with a small bone in his right foot for some time, for which he was also advised to undergo surgery, which however would involve a three-month layoff. He decided to wait and at the moment he doesn’t seem to have any problems, from what we see on the pitch.
It was his, too a technical path, because Pirlo and his staff studied and analyzed him a bit before finding his current position, as left midfielder. He was also a playmaker and right midfielder but in certain weeks in training he also acted as a central defender. Vieira today gives the sensation of being a new, or rediscovered, player. The only comparison that can be made is with the first weeks of the 2019/2020 season, from August to mid-January, with Di Francesco and Ranieri, he almost always played and he did many of those matches well. The numbers of many statistical items of that championship correspond not by chance to those of this one: average of passes completed in 90′ (38.1 then, 38.29 now), completion percentage (82/86.5), touches of ball (56.55/56.35), steals (6.53/7.96)…
Physical condition certainly plays a primary role, but there is more. The boy has grown and matured. He arrived in Genoa at the age of twenty and with very high expectations, considering that Samp had paid him 7.35 million to Andrea Radrizzani’s Leeds (to which 10% of the future transfer price will go). Strongly wanted by Walter Sabatini, who even apologized in the summer of 2022, “I thought he could become a vertical and decisive midfielder and instead he remained very shy”. His excuses which today smack of excess humility on the part of the expert manager, who yesterday added: “he must be more brazen”. Now Vieira is 25 years old, has made 87 appearances (but only 47 as a starter and 21 from the 1st to the 90th minute) for Sampdoria (behind only Murru and Verre) and has a contract until June 2027. He feels fully involved in Sampdoria and its world, the captain’s armband he wore in the last two games when Verre left made him proud. In addition to having given him a sense of responsibility which he takes on with his head held high. He has moved house, lives in Capolungo. And he understood that this season could truly be the turning point. So much depends on him. A lot from Sampdoria too.
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