The playmaker hoping to emulate Redondo – Ossola destined for big things at Milan

While the likes of Francesco Camarda, Kevin Zeroli and Diego Sia often dominate the attention when it comes to AC Milan’s youth sector, Lorenzo Ossola is another name you should get used to seeing.

La Gazzetta dello Sport claim that one day Mauro Bianchessi, former manager of the Rossoneri youth sector, stopped Ossola after a training session and said: “Boy, you really remind me of Redondo”.

The little boy smiled, he was only 7 years old. He didn’t know who the player he had just been compared to was. Back home, he opened the computer and searched for videos of the Argentine talent on Youtube and fell in love with his elegant movements, those precise plays, and promised to become just like him.

That child is growing up and still has a lot to prove but this year with Milan U17 he made the difference. He scored 16 goals and three assists in 25 games and no one on a record-breaking team did better than him. They won the league ahead of Inter and will play the play-off phase in June.

Ossola moves behind the strikers and invents with his left foot. He frames the goal perfectly and when he shoots from the edge of the area it is always a problem for the opposing goalkeeper. Yet, as a child, he played to try thwart others scoring.

He started in the Varese youth team as a central defender when he was four years old and at that time his father Andrea used to take him to watch the senior side at Varese, as well as around top games in Serie A.

Ossola’s mother also always worked in football: she welcomed young players from abroad who arrived in the youth sector at Varese. The boys often spent the afternoons with Lorenzo and he tried to convince them to go and play in the courtyard.