Italian media draw comparisons between Roma defender Gianluca Mancini and former Leeds United and Chelsea midfielder Vinnie Jones: ‘Someone who wanted to leave a mark on the pitch and on his opponents even if it wasn’t always positive.’
Mancini had a particularly eventful evening when Roma beat Juventus 1-0 at the Stadio Olimpico on Sunday evening.
The often-controversial Giallorossi centre-back grabbed the eventual winner with a rifling-driven effort from outside the penalty area in the 53rd minute of the game against Juve.
Seconds before the end of the original 90 minutes, Mancini was also heavily involved in an incident which led to the dismissal of Bianconeri centre-forward Moise Kean.
After some heavy-handed grappling, Kean lashed out and kicked Mancini, in an incident which has already drawn comparisons to the one involving Francesco Totti and Mario Balotelli in the 2010 Coppa Italia final.
Some might say that his headline-grabbing performance against Juve was typical of Mancini, a player who has talent and defensive resilience in abundance, yet always appears to get himself involved in the darker side of the game.
To date, Mancini’s disciplinary record is one of the most notable in Italy, having racked up 51 yellow cards and three sendings off from 164 appearances in the league.
Still, he has some way to go to match the seemingly untouchable record set by Daniele Conti, who boasts an unbelievable 142 cautions and 11 red cards in Serie A.
Tuttomercatoweb.com have recently drawn the comparison between Mancini and the former Premier League and Wimbledon hardman Vinnie Jones, an ex-midfielder for Chelsea and Leeds United, among others.
“Someone for whom it was always important to intervene, often intimidate and certainly provoke,” as they put it. “Someone who wanted to leave a mark on the pitch and on his opponents even if it wasn’t always positive.”
There are certainly Jones-esque elements of Mancini’s play that are visible to spectators whenever he sets foot on the pitch.
The notion that he wants to impose himself on his opponents and demonstrate his physical prowess were evident in the altercation with Kean on Sunday.
However, Mancini himself insists that his personal idol is former Azzurri defender Marco Materazzi.
So much is the admiration for Materazzi, that Mancini has his squad number – 23 – tattooed on his arm.
He explained: “I got the tattoo on the 23rd [day of the month] just for Marco Materazzi. Then I got engaged on the 23rd to my wife, and I moved [to Roma] on the 23rd. Finally I put the number on my shirt. For Marco, it was of course born in the myth of Michael Jordan.”