West Brom's Gianluca Frabotta: Cristiano Ronaldo's ex-colleague won't be intimidated
New Albion left-back Gianluca Frabotta could make his debut for the club as Carlos Corberan's men kickstart their Championship campaign at QPR on Saturday.
The former Italy youth international swapped Juventus for Albion after five years at the Turin giants, where he made 18 senior appearances in total, mostly in the 2020/21 campaign. He has penned a three-year contract at The Hawthorns.
Frabotta, 25, had four loans away from the Old Lady since then, to varying success, and we caught up with Rav Gopal, Juventus fanatic, writer and editor of www.footitalia.com for an expert inside into the Baggies' exciting new left-back.
Q: What are your memories of Frabotta and thoughts of him as a player?
RG: We heard he was coming to Juve and the under-23 team from Bologna back in 2019, which was a new venture at the time, so we saw him as a promising prospect down the line.
He made an appearance off the bench in a title-winning season so he got a medal, before Andrea Pirlo took over (in 2020).
Pirlo took over. He'd never coached before so we didn't know what to expect. In the first game against Sampdoria he threw Frabotta into the mix, we were shocked! He was only 20 or 21 and Juve have always had a problem at left-back. The last good one we had was Gianluca Zambrotta, so we joked about that with how their names sounded familiar!
I remember that first game vividly and he was pretty bloody good! The confidence of a youth player pitched in at the deep end by a coach giving him that belief.
He played 15 to 20 matches that season. He was very reliable. I always remembered him as so keen to get forward from left-back.
