COP or DROP: Antonio Sanabria x Genoa CFC

Item: Antonio Sanabria

Brand: Genoa CFC

Made in: Paraguay

Release date: 04/03/1996

Price: €7M

Antonio Sanabria, the return. The Paraguayan tip is presented to Serie A very timidly in 2014, first debuting with Sassuolo and then playing with AS Roma for a total of four games, after an operation of about seven million in synergy between the two companies orchestrated by the Capitoline company, good to fish him in the Barça youths. The Paraguayan baby was very promising and very early, but it was not yet his time. And so the return to Spain, the good season at Sporting Gijon and the triennial adventure at Betis Sevilla: now Tonny has grown on many points of view and is ready to take on new responsibilities. Two goals in two appearances with the Grifone are an excellent visiting card for the former Barça youth player, but has the difficult task of making Piatek forget. So, if Cesare Prandelli seems to be betting on us, how much are we ready to trust him? Tonny Sanabria, cop or drop?

The former Betis striker, let's make it clear, does not have the nose of Piatek's goal. In two and a half years in Seville, Sanabria scored only fourteen times in fifty-four appearances but his goals will certainly remember the Milan and Real Madrid fans. From the point of view of prolificity, perhaps he did better in his only season at Gijon, where he made eleven markings in thirty races. Goals aside, Sanabria is undoubtedly a talented striker, and still more than twenty-two - he is a 1996 class and will be twenty-three years old on March 4th - and therefore with an apparently rosy future ahead. Let's try to imagine how it could go in the first six months in Liguria and if it will be able to lead the rossoblù to salvation.

Best Case Scenario: Krzysztof Piątek

Ok, we have already said that Tonny does not see the door like the Polish but is still the offensive terminal of Genoa, and so who tells us that in Italy, even for simple desire for redemption, the Paraguayan tip can not start to score with continuity like his predecessor? The fans of Genoa would be infinitely grateful, hoping that Preziosi not only redeem it to sell it immediately at double the amount spent. So, even though in Spain only twenty-five goals were scored out of eighty games, do we want to imagine Sanabria continuing to maintain its current performance in phase (2 games, 2 goals) for all the next days of the second round? We believe in it!

Worst Case Scenario: Juan Esnáider

Although Juan Esnáider in Spain had made sparks with the jerseys of Real Madrid and especially Atletico Madrid and Espanyol, coming to attract in 1999 the attention of Juventus who paid him even twelve billion of the old lire, it must be said that his adventure in Italy it was a real disaster. Called to replace Del Piero, the Argentine bomber played sixteen games with the Old Lady in the second round of the championship but never went on the field the following season given the "difficulty" in scoring. The same fate could happen in Sanabria in the worst case. Moreover, he and Esnáider have different things in common: both are South Americans, both have grown football in one of the two major Spanish teams and both arrived in Italy in January to the sound of millions to replace a gunner at the start.

Expected Scenario: Mario Balotelli

Maybe in the future will do better, but certainly, most likely, we can only expect more than ten to fifteen for Tonny Sanabria. After the Manchester City, in fact, SuperMario returned to Milan, the Rossoneri side, to bring the Devil back to heaven, helping him to reach the qualification for the Champions League preliminaries of the following season. The following year, unfortunately and against all the forecasts, Balotelli could not repeat, what we do not wish at all in Sanabria.

Fun facts:

Sanabria has chosen the shirt number 9, left free of Piatek and the same that he wore at Betis Sevilla in 2016. With Rome and Sassuolo instead he chose 96, so this is the first time that Sanabria plays with the number of strikers on the back in Serie A. Which can bring him as well as in Spain?