Sunderland signing Emanuele Giaccherini in 2013 was something of a coup. Antonio Conte, then Juventus manager, liked the right sided player and Giaccherini was an Italy international.
Juventus wanted to sell in order to raise funds for other purchases, and that enabled Sunderland to move in. Giaccherini himself received a big pay rise on what he’d been on at Juventus, and it looked like Sunderland had a good deal on their hands.
Doing reasonably well in his first season with Sunderland, Giaccherini still missed out on Italy’s World Cup squad and things started going downhill from there. Injured for Sunderland in pre-season, Giaccherini then picked up further knocks and by the end of the 2014/15 season he was looking for the first flight back to Italy.
Bologna agreed a loan deal with Sunderland, and Giaccherini had found himself an Italian club where he could be prominent and get a stage. A permanent move from Sunderland looked nailed on, the player’s agent repeatedly spoke about it and explained how Bologna was everything to Giaccherini that Sunderland wasn’t.
Yet despite the player being happy at Bologna, when Napoli came in during the summer window he dumped the north of Italy for Campania. Since then Giaccherini has managed 227 Serie A minutes and a further 12 in the Champions League, the grass isn’t always greener.
During his loan from Sunderland to Bologna, Giaccherini had done so well that he found himself back in the Italy squad, winning a place at Euro 2016. At Napoli, Giaccherini is understudy to Jose Callejon, and whilst he’s barely featured in the league, the Italian has enjoyed some success in the Coppa Italia.
Regardless, this isn’t the way Giaccherini would have expected his Sunderland exit to go. Now the player’s agent is speaking to the Italian media trying to spin the situation to a good slant, he’ll struggle to do so.
