Looking different: the story of Gianluigi Lentini Today is the birthday of one of the most misunderstood players of the Italian Serie A

In the 90s it was not so common to comment on every look a football player worn. The attention to that aspect of the game came later, with the Beckham-era. Obviously, there were some exceptions, like the ones of George Best or Johan Cruyff, relegated to great champions who were able to influence the people tastes.

It was then stranges the newspaper chronicles of that time, when describing Gianluigi Lentini, who was ready to become the most paid player in the world. There was an incredible focus on his look, his jewelry, his fast cars and a behavior that could look naïf, but was only the symbol of a fragile guy, come from the country and became great and overpaid. The attention around Lentini, made him the first modern player in Serie A.

Perhaps Lentini was not ready, or perhaps we were not, to become the first media player in the history of Serie A. He crashed into that yellow Porsche, against the coma, against a physicist who no longer reacted properly. And that gave us only a nostalgic memory of a sample that could have been and was not.