Ballon d’Or candidate Barella must mature for Inter and Italy

The only Italian to appear on the Ballon d’Or shortlist, Inter midfielder Nicolò Barella said new Italy coach Luciano Spalletti ‘both criticised and complimented’ him in their first meeting. It is the best way to approach a player who can at times be infuriating.

It was overall a positive season for Calcio, seeing Serie A representatives make it to the Final of each UEFA club competition. On the other hand, they were all eventually beaten – in very, very tight games – and Italy failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. All that put together explains why there is only one Azzurri player in the 30-man shortlist for the Ballon d’Or.

While Napoli won the Scudetto, Inter reached the Champions League Final, won the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana, all of it with Barella present in practically every single game. He ended up scoring nine goals and providing 10 assists in 52 competitive appearances, including the tremendous strike at Camp Nou in a 3-3 thriller with Barcelona back in October 2022.

With Jorginho and Marco Verratti looking like they will be left in the Azzurri past, Barella will take even more of a key role in Spalletti’s side going forward. After all, while those veterans could both pick passes and make tackles, they were never going to deliver anywhere near the goal-scoring threat provided by Barella, who can hit a rocket from outside the box as well as any centre-forward. He became famous for his defensive capabilities, but has flourished at Inter into one of their top scorers.

Still only 26 years of age, Barella feels like he has been around forever and is truly irreplaceable in the Inter and Italy midfield. His babyface, pint-sized stature and love of practical jokes give him the air of a cheeky, resourceful child who could very easily set up a Home Alone style series of booby traps for opposition strikers.

Unfortunately, that same cheekiness can go overboard into petulance, as the majority of his yellow cards are not for fouls, but rather his inability to keep that mouth shut. It is not even just with referees that Barella gets into trouble, because as Romelu Lukaku made all too clear last season, berating your teammates by constantly waving your arms around and shouting is not the way to get the best out of anyone. He just keeps going and going and going, until the outcome becomes inevitable.

This is sadly not the behaviour of a leader. So while Barella has extraordinary potential, at 26 he is still not mature enough to set an example or motivate his team during difficult moments. One can only assume that was one of the key points in Spalletti’s “honest” discussion that so touched him on the first day of Italy training. Here’s hoping it sunk in, because it is absolutely the biggest weakness in Barella’s game and his personality in general. If he can learn to let these things go and focus only on what will actually help in the situation, then he will be back on that Ballon d’Or shortlist many more times.

There have been some rumours flying around that Davide Frattesi was signed from Sassuolo not to act as a partner to Barella, but effectively to replace him so that next summer the former Cagliari man can be sold on at a huge profit, most likely to a Premier League side like Liverpool. He would certainly enjoy the tempo and ability to launch into tackles provided by the English game, but it would be an immense loss for Inter and Serie A in general if that were to happen. It could even make his problems with referees worse, because having someone screaming constantly and waving his arms like a meme of a furious Italian over the tiniest issue makes it entirely clear what he is saying, even if his grasp of the English language isn’t ideal.

Twitter: @SusyCampanale