An ode to Claudio Marchisio: The Little Prince of Turin
Even though I was still quite young and barely watched Italian football, Claudio Marchisio always mesmerised me. I would sit in front of the television and watch Juventus’ Champions League games. As someone who’s mostly played as a midfielder, I paid close attention to those playing similar roles. Although he wasn’t the main star, Marchisio was always a strong presence in midfield and I saw how he allowed his teammates to shine. His mentality, energy, positional sense and tactical awareness never went unnoticed. Marchisio was a different kind of player, not just on the pitch, but also off it. He had something about him, a certain class and elegance. Or as Gen Z would nowadays say: a certain ‘aura’.
When a young Claudio trained with Juventus’ first team for the first time in 2006, one of his teammates gave him the nickname Il Principino (The Little Prince). Because where everyone would turn up in casual clothes or a tracksuit, Marchisio dressed smartly, wearing a jacket and a shirt. He also showed good manners and had this sense of superiority that people from Turin or Northern Italy often project. He had a calm personality, but the attitude of a true leader.
Details
The secret to Marchisio’s class and elegance lies in the details. The details that tend to go unnoticed. ‘’In everything from fashion to football, training, perfecting a technical gesture to everyday life. Details, at least in my experience, have always made the difference in my path,’’ Marchisio told NSS Magazine in 2021.
This quote perfectly highlights his career as a footballer too. The Italian was a jack-of-all-trades and was often moved around the pitch by different managers to accommodate other players such as Pirlo and Pogba. It’s both a strength and trap because it’s perhaps one of the reasons why Marchisio isn’t mentioned enough when discussing that brilliant Juventus side of the 2010s with whom he won seven league titles in a row.
Despite having plenty of flashy moments with his quick feet and scoring some world-class goals, such as the one against Inter Milan in 2009, he mostly went under the radar and you needed to pay close attention to him to truly notice the quality he possessed. He was the detail that made that team gel.
In Turin, however, the fans will always remember their prince. Claudio Marchisio was to Juventus, what Daniele De Rossi was to AS Roma. As the youngest in a family full of Juve fans, Marchisio dreamt of following in the footsteps of Alessandro Del Piero, whose posters were all over his bedroom walls. Despite not playing in the same position and not scoring anywhere near the same amount of goals, he did achieve his goal. Because, in my opinion, the class, fighting spirit, calmness and elegance he possessed on and off the pitch are exactly the things that any Juventus player should radiate.
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Fashion icon
Off the pitch, Marchisio did often enter the spotlights. The way he thinks about fashion and the special relationship he has with it was highlighted in an interview with NSS Sports. ‘’There are definitely items I can’t do without or other little things, like socks, where I’ve discovered, even for a classic person like me, that certain colours can represent a mood or a phase of your life or day.’’
‘’In the world of football as well as all other people who have the money to buy certain clothes, they may think they look good or are fashionable, but often this is not the case. Fashion is knowing how to wear things in my opinion, it’s not a question of money, it’s more a question of seeing and imagining a garment hanging in a shop and thinking how it might look on you. Not everyone knows how to wear certain garments, so it also becomes a personal thing. You need a certain naturalness, a certain empathy.’’
‘’In life, you’re not born a style icon” – Claudio Marchisio
David Beckham is the only other footballer according to Marchisio who has been able to understand this and who has been on a perfect path. ‘’In life, you’re not born a style icon. Each of us has a path, maybe you go from outfits that are a bit ‘makeup’ then slowly you begin to understand certain things. As it was for me, when I was twenty I had a totally different taste. You have to make a path and then get to express the best of your identity that each of us has inside and according to the age you have, because tastes may change, but in the end the way you wear or see something is always the same.’’
I long for a player like Marchisio again. Someone who would always turn up in a perfectly tailored suit and whose mannerisms and charisma would leave everybody in the room in awe. It’s perhaps this kind of player that I Bianconeri has been missing over the last few years and why rivals such as Inter Milan, AC Milan and Napoli were able to end Juventus’ dominance.
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