The transfer conversation around Serie A tends to go one direction: who’s leaving. Osimhen, Vlahovic, Theo Hernández before that - the league gets framed as a talent pipeline for richer competitions. What that framing misses is the type of player Serie A is actually developing best right now, and it isn’t a striker or a winger. It’s the midfielder who holds the shape together.
Look at who’s operating at the base of midfield across Italy’s top clubs and the quality is striking. Juventus rebuilt their entire identity around Manuel Locatelli, a player who was considered a mid-tier Serie A regular before Mancini put him in an Italy shirt and the world noticed. Samuele Ricci at Torino has been quietly exceptional for two seasons, running press-resistant sequences from deep that most Premier League clubs would pay a premium to replicate. Napoli’s midfield last season was built around positional discipline in a way English clubs rarely manage at all, let alone consistently.
Part of this is structural. Serie A’s mid-table clubs can’t afford to press relentlessly - they lack the squad depth to sustain it over 38 games - so they defend in shape. That means midfielders have to read the game properly. You can’t hide a holding midfielder in a low-block the way you can tuck a slow centre-back into a high-line system and paper over it with offside traps. The defensive midfielder has to cover ground, intercept passing lanes, and communicate constantly. Serie A, almost by accident, has created the conditions to train exactly that.
Why No One’s Buying Them
The uncomfortable answer is aesthetic. Defensive midfielders don’t generate highlights. A perfectly timed interception that kills a counter-attack in the 34th minute doesn’t circulate on social media. Clubs with money tend to respond to pressure from their supporters and boards to sign players who look exciting, which means attackers and box-to-box types with goals and assists attached to their name.
That bias is costing clubs. Several Premier League teams are spending heavily on number eights who can’t protect a defence, when Serie A has holding midfielders available - some on relatively modest contracts - who would solve the exact problem those teams keep losing points to.
Whether that gap closes or Serie A keeps quietly producing players for clubs too distracted to notice them is an open question. The talent is there. The market logic that should follow it hasn’t quite caught up.