Chelsea’s Cesare Casadei shone at the U20 World Cup – so what now for the midfielder?
(Top photo: Marcio Machado/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
THE ATHLETIC - Jun 16, 2023
For three weeks, the core of Italy’s remarkably successful attacking game plan at the recent Under-20 World Cup in Argentina could be accurately summarised as “good things happen when Cesare Casadei touches the ball in the box”.
It was particularly cruel, then, that a Casadei touch in his own penalty area proved their undoing in the 86th minute of the final against Uruguay on Sunday. Recovering to block Alan Matturro’s goal-bound shot following a corner scramble, the Chelsea prospect inadvertently sent the ball looping across the six-yard box onto the head of Luciano Rodriguez to score the night’s only goal.
Just as crucial to Uruguay winning their first Under-20 World Cup was their success at practically eliminating Casadei’s touches in their box. Italy registered just two shot attempts in 102 minutes of action including stoppage time, both from outside the penalty area, with their star midfielder afforded no opportunities to add to his tournament-leading seven goals.
Were it not for shots that hit the crossbar against Nigeria and the post against Colombia, Casadei might incredibly have gone into that final on nine goals — the same number a certain Erling Haaland managed at the previous Under-20 World Cup in 2019 (all nine coming in a single match against Honduras).
Casadei collects his Golden Boot from FIFA president Gianni Infantino
(Photo: Buda Mendes – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
Two of Casadei’s seven goals were emphatic penalties. Three were headers from corners: the first coolly knocked down for himself to nod into an empty net in their group opener against Brazil, the second glanced in off the post after contorting his body in a split second to redirect a near-post flick in the final group game against the Dominican Republic, and the third powered in at the back post to help beat Colombia in the quarter-finals.
His other two showcased the kind of assured finishing elite clubs more typically look for in strikers.
Late on in that 3-0 win over the Dominican Republic, he pounced on a wayward goal kick on the left flank, dribbled towards a back-pedalling defender in the box, got him off balance with a quick stepover and a shift of the ball to his left foot, and shot into the far corner.
The best of the bunch came early in the narrow 2-1 defeat of South Korea in the semi-finals: opening his body as he ran on to Riccardo Turicchia’s low pass in from the left, he met it just inside the penalty area, side-footing the ball high, hard and first time with his right foot into the top corner.
Such a consistent, polished and varied goal threat is not normal for a midfielder, but then Casadei is not a normal midfielder — at least not by modern standards. If anything, last summer’s 6ft 1in (185cm) signing from Inter Milan is a stylistic throwback to the tall, athletic, powerfully-built midfield goalscorers who enjoyed their prime seasons in the 2000s: the likes of Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Michael Ballack.
It was very appropriate that, in a light-hearted interview with FIFA’s media channels for TikTok during the tournament in Argentina, Casadei picked Lampard over a series of alternative legendary midfielders — deviating from Chelsea’s record goalscorer only when Italy icon Andrea Pirlo was mentioned.
— Italian Football TV (@IFTVofficial) June 9, 2023
The key question now is whether Casadei’s unusual profile will help or hinder the next stage of his development.
Chelsea believe he is one year and one good loan (he spent the second half of last season at Championship strugglers Reading) away from being in a position to compete for a place in their first-team squad. They would like that loan to be somewhere in the Premier League, but significant interest in him within England’s top flight has not yet materialised.
Pep Guardiola bears some responsibility for that. His dominant Barcelona teams from 2008 to 2012 ushered in a new era of ultra-sophisticated tactical systems and greater technical demands than ever before across all positions, but particularly so in midfield.
In the modern game, those who operate in the middle of the pitch are expected above all else to be comfortable receiving the ball in deep positions, playing through or around pressure in tight spaces and breaking the opposition lines with passing or dribbling — and this technical emphasis has trickled down well below Europe’s elite tier of clubs.
Casadei is hardly bad technically but, at least at this early stage of his career, he does not excel at any of those things.
He is best suited to operating as a No 8 who can be granted the freedom to run forward without the ball, where the exceptional timing of his runs into the opposition penalty area, his ability to finish with either foot and his knowledge of how to use his body in the air have a knack of being decisive.
Chelsea have not had a player remotely like that since Lampard left in 2014, and a chronic lack of goal threat from midfield in the Kante-Jorginho-Kovacic era has unquestionably contributed to the team’s broader attacking stagnation. New head coach Mauricio Pochettino may be looking to build a different type of midfield, and it would not be shocking if he saw in Casadei some of the same qualities that once made Dele Alli so effective converting late runs and headed chances for him at Tottenham Hotspur.
That likely remains some way off, if it happens at all.
Chelsea’s more urgent challenge is to find a better loan fit for Casadei this season than Reading proved to be en route to their relegation into the third tier of English football (he was on the winning side just once in his 15 appearances, scoring one goal). Ideally, the club borrowing him would afford the 20-year-old a chance to do what he does best while also expanding his game.
Casadei played 15 times for relegation-bound Reading
(Photo: Malcolm Couzens/Getty Images)
Casadei understandably has interest from back in Italy, but Chelsea would much prefer him to continue his adaptation to English football. He impressed many at their Cobham training ground in the first half of last season with how quickly he settled into his new surroundings and picked up the language. By all accounts, he is a highly independent, low-maintenance character.
Even that loan spell is regarded as a positive step — and the speed at which he shook off any lingering disappointment to shine at the Under-20 World Cup, with Italy’s campaign starting two weeks after his final appearance for Reading, was particularly well received at Chelsea.
The hope is that it persuades another Premier League club to give an opportunity to a player who, despite not fitting the prevailing model of what a midfielder should be in 2023, has a set of attributes that could make him a real difference-maker in English football.
Liam is a Staff Writer for The Athletic, covering Chelsea.
He previously worked for Goal covering the Premier League before becoming the Chelsea correspondent for ESPN in 2015, witnessing the unravelling of Jose Mourinho, the rise and fall of Antonio Conte, the brilliance of Eden Hazard and the madness of Diego Costa.
He has also contributed to The Independent and ITV Sport.
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