The transfer market’s attention has been fixed on forwards for the better part of a decade. Strikers, wingers, number tens when clubs can find a convincing argument - that’s where the serious money goes. Meanwhile, Serie A has been producing defensive midfielders at a rate and quality that the rest of Europe is only starting to notice, usually because they’ve already lost one of their own to it.
Look at who is playing the deepest midfield role for the continent’s better clubs right now. A significant number of them either came through Serie A, developed their best years there, or were rebuilt by Italian coaches who treat the position as architecture rather than afterthought. The role in Italy isn’t just about winning the ball - it’s about controlling the shape of the press, managing transitions before they become problems, and dictating tempo in a way that makes the whole team’s structure coherent.
This is partly tactical inheritance. Italian football has historically demanded more from players in that zone than most other leagues. The rigidity that Serie A was once mocked for - those compact 4-3-3 and 3-5-2 shapes with double pivots - turned out to be exceptional training grounds for reading space. A midfielder who spent three seasons learning how to operate within those constraints understands positioning in a way that a player shaped by the Premier League’s more reactive, press-and-recover culture often doesn’t.
The Rest of Europe Noticed Late
Clubs in England and Spain are now recruiting these players at premium prices and then discovering, slightly awkwardly, that they work best in systems built around the same principles that shaped them. You can move the player without moving the logic.
Sandro Tonali is the obvious example - his time in Serie A was cut short by the betting ban, but his profile was entirely a product of that environment. Nicolo Barella, still at Inter, has been arguably the best midfielder in Europe across the last two seasons by consistency rather than peak moments, which is exactly the kind of valuation that gets undersold in highlight-driven coverage.
Why It Goes Underappreciated
The position doesn’t lend itself to the metrics that dominate transfer conversations. Key passes, progressive carries, goal contributions - none of them capture what a genuinely elite defensive midfielder does to a team’s shape when things go wrong. Serie A coaches have been building around that understanding while the rest of the market is still arguing about the number ten.
At some point, clubs will start paying what these players are actually worth. Some already are.