Madam, it's a striker
Italy sink France at San Siro with two goals from Pio Esposito, an old-school number nine who is already the hope of a team desperate to return to the World Cup.
Some children come into the world with their position already written. When the doctor delivering Mrs Esposito's baby held him for the first time, he had no doubt at all: this newborn would hold up long balls with his back to goal, win aerial duels against six-foot-six centre-backs and break down packed defences by heading in at the far post. "Madam, it's a striker."
Francesco Pio Esposito is that timeless Italian reference point, from the school of Luca Toni and Christian Vieri, the number nines who earned their wages inside the box, facing away from the target. He has the name of a pope, the torso of a gladiator hardened in the great colosseums and a Popeye celebration, biceps flexed, born out of dressing-room banter in the Spezia gym. He stands 1.90 m tall and is 21 years old. He doesn't play with fear: he is the fear. Like Shakespeare's Caesar, he could say that "Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than he."
He doesn't play with fear: he is the fear
San Siro saw it on Thursday. France, even without Mbappé and Dembélé, start stronger and go ahead early: Donnarumma gifts the ball away in the build-up, Olise skips past Bastoni and makes it 0-1. Italy struggle to get going until Pio decides enough is enough. In the 26th minute Cambiaghi breaks down the flank and drills a low cross into the heart of the area; Esposito beats the French centre-backs to it, wins the position the way it has always been won in Italy, with his body, and pokes home the equaliser. It is a textbook number nine's goal: he needs no space, only to sense where the ball will land while everyone else is still looking for it.
The night also has a family script. On the hour, his older brother Sebastiano fires a penalty wide. Shortly afterwards Frattesi makes it 2-1 with a run from deep, and when Vergara wins another spot-kick the ball changes hands without leaving the house: it is Pio's. The same Pio who missed in the Zenica shoot-out in March, the one that left Italy without a World Cup, coolly converts for 3-1. It is his ninth goal in 15 senior internationals.
The same Pio who missed in Zenica in March scores the penalty for 3-1
The win puts Italy top of their Nations League group, level on points with France but ahead on head-to-head after the 1-1 in the first meeting, and two clear of Belgium. On Sunday in Brussels a draw will be enough to reach the quarter-finals.
To understand what it means you have to look back. Italy, champions four times over, have missed three World Cups in a row: Russia 2018, Qatar 2022 and this summer's tournament, after losing on penalties to Bosnia in the play-off final. Gattuso left and Roberto Mancini took charge once more. Since then the team has been preparing never to be absent again. And when you have spent so long longing to return to a stage you miss, you come back stamping your authority and fighting like few others. Italy know all about that: they built their history on a way of competing that nobody else has.
"Here we make Italy, or we die," Garibaldi told Nino Bixio at Calatafimi in 1860, when the unification of the country depended on an uphill charge. A hundred and sixty-six years later, Italian football is once again on a mission of reconquest, and this time it is led by a generation that has never known a World Cup: Tonali, Barella, Frattesi, Bastoni, Cambiaghi… and, out in front of them all, Pio. The number nine who never hides, who asks for the ball with his back to goal and who steps up to take the penalty after missing one on the darkest night. He is the leader of a generation of Italian warriors determined to return the Azzurri to the place they should never have left.
Pio is the leader of a generation of Italian warriors out to reconquer the World Cup
In this rebuilding, the number nine already has a name. Pio is the youngest of three footballing brothers from Castellammare di Stabia: Salvatore, Sebastiano and him. He wears 94 at Inter in tribute to his neighbourhood, the rione Cicerone. He arrived in Milan after scoring 19 goals for Spezia in Serie B in 2024/25; in his first season with the Nerazzurri he scored seven in the top flight, and this campaign he already has three in the league and one in the Champions League, against Feyenoord. His Big Data Rating is 70: above the average of the centre-forwards in the 37 leagues we analyse, with 928 minutes this season between Inter and the national team.
Pio is the youngest of three brothers and already Italy's number nine
For twelve years Italy have been waiting at the edge of the forest, watching others share out the glory of World Cups; the last one they played was Brazil 2014. They have watched their envoys come back beaten from Sweden, North Macedonia and Zenica. Now Mancini has put the ranks back in order, and at San Siro the smoke of the first flaming arrows is already rising. When the Azzurri set foot in a World Cup again, they will not ask for permission. They will do it like Maximus facing the Germanic tribes in Gladiator: clench the fist, bend the elbow and, when the whistle blows, roar: "At my signal, unleash hell." And the first to charge will be a 1.90 m number nine born to change the destiny of his kingdom.
Data: API-Football, 2026/27 season up to 08/11/2026 (Serie A and Champions League with Inter) and previous seasons. Big Data Rating: Al Primer Toque, compared with the centre-forwards of the 37 leagues we analyse, with the league coefficient; 928 minutes this season (579 in Serie A, 113 in the Champions League and 236 with Italy up to 08/11). Italy-France (3-1, 12/11/2026): Il Post match report. Play-off against Bosnia (31/03/2026): Italian press. Brothers, shirt number and celebration: player interviews in Calciomercato and Tuttomercatoweb. Lost play-offs: Sweden (2017), North Macedonia (2022) and Bosnia (2026).
