Meet the Western Sydney 16-year-old making stunning Serie A breakthrough

Unless you knew what you were looking for, you would have missed it. But there it was, buried in the fine print: another young Aussie making a stunning breakthrough at AS Roma, one of Italy’s biggest clubs.

Born and raised in Sydney, the meteoric rise of teenager Antonio Arena continued on Sunday when he was named on the bench, alongside Paulo Dybala and Lorenzo Pellegrini, for Roma.

He didn’t get onto the pitch in their 1-0 away victory over Serie A rivals Pisa SC, which was played a stone’s throw away from the leaning tower. But the bench was as far as Socceroos captain Maty Ryan got in his six-month stint in the Italian capital last season – so it’s not a bad effort for a 16-year-old kid who has already “intrigued” Roma’s new manager Gian Piero Gasperini, the Europa League-winning former Atalanta boss considered one of the world’s best coaches.

Naming Arena in his match-day squad, Gasperini said last week, was how he planned to “start getting to know him” as a player.

If this feels a bit like déjà vu, you’re not wrong. There are eerie similarities between Arena and Cristian Volpato. Both spent time in the Western Sydney Wanderers academy. Both ended up at AS Roma, with the assistance of a local third-party operator, after deciding to take an alternative path to fast-track their development. And both chose to wear the famous royal blue strip of Italy at junior level, despite being born-and-bred Aussies.

For Arena, who grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs, there was an important step in between.

Three years ago, his father, Antonino, approached Sydney-based coach and scout Anthony Ucchino, who runs the Football Ucchino academy, for advice. Arena was never enrolled in his program, but Ucchino was a friend of the family; then 13, Antonio had trialled at Spanish club Real Betis, but wanted to explore other opportunities abroad.

That year, 2022, Ucchino had organised for two Italian World Cup stars – the late Toto Schillaci and Giuseppe Giannini – to visit Australia. Along with them came Marco Arcese, the head of the academy at Delfino Pescara 1936, a club in Italy’s third tier.

“We put him forward,” said Ucchino, who has had a relationship with Pescara for over 20 years.

“[Arcese] said, ‘Look, this kid’s very interesting’. They offered him a week’s trial. He went over there, and within probably the first training session, I had received a phone call saying that this kid showed some serious promise, and that they were going to do whatever it took to secure him.”

Bigger teams were interested, but Pescara appealed to Arena, his family and management because they thought they could offer him the right environment to nurture him further. And so it proved: after winning their golden boot at under-16s level, he graduated to their Primavera squad, and before long was called straight into their senior side, playing in Serie C.

In February of this year, he signed his first professional contract. Days later, he scored for Pescara just eight minutes into his league debut.

In so doing, he became the first player born in 2009 to score in Italy’s professional leagues and the club’s youngest-ever goalscorer (breaking Marco Verratti’s record), aged just 16 years and 25 days.

“All of a sudden, you’re on the map,” said Ucchino. “Eyes are on you.”

Arena’s efforts made national headlines in Italy, where he was nicknamed Il Baby Bomber, and naturally, bigger clubs started paying closer attention. After playing a role in Pescara’s promotion to Serie B, Roma beat Napoli and a host of other European sides to his signature in July for a reported $1.78 million transfer fee.

But few could have predicted how quickly he would appear on Gasperini’s bench, or that media outlets would already be drawing comparisons between him and the likes of Erling Haaland, Luca Toni and Christian Vieri, another famous Sydney product.

A classic centre forward who stands at 188cm tall (though he’s still growing), Arena is a natural athlete, strong, quick, with an eye for goal and excellent spatial awareness. But for Ucchino, it was always his mentality that stood out over his other attributes, and which allows him to stay grounded through his whirlwind adventure in Italy.

“The one thing about Antonio is his attitude, his application,” he said. “He’s very mature for his age. He wasn’t an average 14-year-old when you spoke to him. He’s very dedicated, willing to put in the hard yards.

“The kid’s obviously proud and happy … but it’s very important that we don’t get too carried away, and that he stays focused, and treats every day as a new day. That’s what he’s been doing up until today, and that’s what we hope for him to continue to do with the support network around him.”

The matter of his international allegiance is a sensitive one. He played one game for Australia’s under-16s last year, but switched this year to Italy, has since played for the Azzurrini in UEFA’s qualifiers for the FIFA U-17 World Cup, and admits their jersey “arouses beautiful emotions in me”.

That doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t play for Australia one day; Alessandro Circati, as an example, also represented Italy as a youth but is on course to play for the Socceroos at next year’s World Cup. Volpato is the opposite example, and turned down the chance to play at the last World Cup.

It’s a complicated and personal decision – and there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge, so it’s a question for another day. For now, he’s one to follow closely from afar.

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