In the footsteps of Donnarumma, an archer forged next to Vesuvius

Vesuvius looks majestic, seen from this modest football field in the Neapolitan region, but little Gianluigi Donnarumma, current goalkeeper for Paris Saint-Germain and the Italian national team, was only interested in the ball as a child.

“It started here, on that football field. He came to see the training of his older brother (Antonio, also turned professional goalkeeper) and he also put himself in goal to make stops,” Ciro Amore confides AFP.

The president of the ASD Napoli football school proudly tells how Gianluigi Donnarumma began in Castellamare di Stabia, a town in the Bay of Naples very close to the sleeping volcano of Vesuvius and the ruins of Pompeii.

Close to such emblematic places and far from Qatar, where he hopes to be in the World Cup in November if Italy overcomes the repesca at this end of March, one of the heroes who crowned Italy at the Eurocopa-2020 learned to stop penalties.

Ciro Amore, a sexagenarian, never tires of talking about the beginnings of 'Gigione'. It shows his first licenses, signed with a child's deed, or the photos and shirts sent by the 23-year-old, who recently experienced his worst night since arriving at Paris Saint-Germain with the Champions League elimination against Real Madrid.

“He was only four and a half years old and couldn't be part of any team, but we started to make him participate in training. He was never afraid of anything. I already had a different physique, it was quite big. We saw that he had all the characteristics of a great archer,” says the president.

- “Father” and “friend” -

“The technical qualities, yes, but he had others, especially his character. He never tired of playing and coaching,” says Angelo Panariello, coach at that club, where the current PSG goalkeeper wore his gloves until he was 14 years old, when he joined the youth categories of AC Milan.

In the historic club 'rossonero' he became a starter at the age of 16 and a half. It remained so until his signing for Paris Saint-Germain last year.

Gianluigi Donnarumma owes much in his sporting growth to the local archer coach in Castellammare di Stabia, Ernesto Ferraro.

In addition to the Donnarumma brothers, Ferraro trained other goalkeepers who have played in Serie A, such as Gennaro Iezzo, former Napoli, or Antonio Mirante, Milan's third goalkeeper.

“If today I fulfilled my dream of stepping on the lawn of San Siro, I owe it above all to him,” Gianluigi Donnarumma himself paid tribute to him when Ernesto Ferraro died in December 2018.

“Thank you for being such a valuable guide, a father, a friend. You came to pick me up at home, rain or wind, to take me to practice and games,” he wrote on Instagram.

“Ernesto always told me that Gigione would not only make it to Serie A, but to the Nazionale (the Italian national team) because as soon as I tell him something, he retains him,” says Angelo Panariello.

- Milanese derby -

“His only problem, which may be a quality, is that he never wanted to lose. When he lost, he got angry and confronted us, saying that we were wrong in the lineup,” recalls the former coach tenderly.

The most difficult thing for Gianluigi Donnarumma, son of a carpenter from this Italian region, was choosing between the two Milanese clubs.

“The first interested club was Inter. The youth manager came here, to the office, to talk to the father. We even went to Milan to sign a pre-contract with Inter,” he says.

But the family ended up deciding to go to the youth team of AC Milan, where the brother, Antonio, was already nine years older.

According to several media outlets, AC Milan paid about 250,000 euros ($273,000) to attract its juveniles to that great promise.

“The 200,000 or 300,000 euros talked about, I don't know where they went! We, as a club, do not receive more than 25,000 euros (27,350 dollars)”, says Ciro Amore.

Donnarumma was in this area of Italy last year to visit her parents, who have a house a few kilometres away, between Castellammare and Pompeii. He did so with the medal that credited him as champion of the European Championship with Italy.

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