Take me back to the Somma time — Square Ball 17/10/23

BRING IT ON

Written by: Rob Conlon

If you saw Davide Somma relaxing with the ball at his feet in the penalty area and only the ‘keeper between him and the goal, you’d never have guessed that he was playing with the urgency of trying to make up for lost time. When Somma made his league debut for Leeds by coming off the bench against Millwall in August 2010, he was 25, six years into a pro career that amounted to a handful of goals in the fourth tiers of English and Italian football. He was still an unknown in Leeds, not that it affected his confidence. “It’ll come,” Somma told Phil Hay during a pre-season trip to Slovakia. “It’s a matter of time.”

But time wasn’t a luxury that Somma could afford. His career had begun with a false start at Perugia, where a combination of an ACL injury and the club’s financial implosion meant he never played. After three years in Italy’s fourth division, he returned to the USA — where he had moved from South Africa as a child — to join the San Jose Earthquakes. He barely played there, either, but was encouraged by teammate and ex-Leeds winger Darren Huckerby to give English football a try. Somma booked a “one-way flight” to England, but even though he was signed by Leeds after an unsuccessful trial at QPR, his luck didn’t seem to be changing.

Handed his debut off the bench in a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie against Darlington, he injured his hamstring and couldn’t finish the game, Leeds ending the match a player short. A short loan spell at Chesterfield was meant to give him some much-needed game time, but he missed a penalty on his debut then injured his hamstring again. While Leeds were challenging for promotion from League One under Simon Grayson, Somma was out on loan once more, battling against relegation to non-league with Lincoln City. His initial one-year deal with Leeds was expiring in the summer, and time was running out.

Chris Sutton isn’t exactly known for talking much sense these days, but while in charge of Lincoln, whatever he said to Somma worked. Somma scored on his Lincoln debut, and didn’t stop. He was only there for a couple of months but ended the season as their top scorer, with nine in thirteen appearances, helping the side comfortably avoid the drop. It wasn’t so much the rate of his finishing that stood out, but more the style that gave him the self-assurance to tell the Yorkshire Evening Post that summer, “I can be a Championship player, no doubt about that at all. Bring it on.”

Leeds were hoping the loan to Lincoln would provide the striker with the same boost Jermaine Beckford benefited from after scoring a couple of stunners for Scunthorpe. But Somma still had to wait, suspended for the start of Leeds’ return to the Championship after getting sent off on his final Lincoln appearance for headbutting a centre-half. Ironically, he served one of his three-match ban by missing Leeds’ League Cup tie against Lincoln. When he was named on the bench for the visit of Millwall to Elland Road, Beckford had left, Leeds were still waiting for their first win back in the Championship, and our old friends in Bermondsey were the league’s early pacesetters, winning their opening two games by an aggregate scoreline of 7-0.

Leeds were irrepressible against Millwall, Sanchez Watt and Lloyd Sam enjoying two of their best games in white shirts in the absence of Bob Snodgrass and Max Gradel. But the score was somehow 1-1 when Grayson introduced Somma in the 75th minute, Richard Naylor having scored a ridiculous own-goal and Leeds hitting the woodwork three times and having another effort cleared off the line. This was Somma’s big chance; he couldn’t waste it. He had to wait another four minutes for his first touch, using it to calmly side foot the ball into the net, coolly celebrating like Sniffer Clarke by applauding neither himself, nor his teammates, nor the supporters, but rather everything all at once: The Spectacle Of A Goal!

It was as if Somma recognised this was the afternoon his whole career had been building up to. In injury-time, he brought down Jonny Howson’s long pass with the first touch Beckford always intended at Old Trafford. He shimmied past a defender, presenting him with a huge gap of space at the near post that any old clogger — except Billy Paynter — could slice a ball into. It worked for Geoff Hurst in 1966, and that seemed to make people happy. But Somma respected the valour in scoring goals, shooting powerfully and precisely into the smaller target of the far corner. If every goal counts the same, then why not make them as beautiful as possible?

Was it daft to wonder whether Leeds had found their new Beckford? Somma didn’t think so:

“It’s asking a lot but why not? Anyone is capable of doing it — we have a brilliant team. I’m an out-and-out goalscorer. I was dreaming about doing something like that on Friday night, though I’ve never scored with my first touch before.”

Even when Leeds were thumped 5-2 at Barnsley and 6-4 by Preston, Somma still made sure he scored the best goals of the game, far more graceful than anything that bounced off Jon Parkin’s beer gut. After the Preston match, he had scored five goals in his first six league appearances, a rate not even £16m Joel Piroe can match. Throw in the opener in a League Cup defeat to Leicester, and Somma had six in seven.

The class with which Somma scored each time justified his self-confidence. Luciano Becchio outdid him in a volley-off at Boro, describing the experience live on Sky as “fucking unbelievable”. Somma lost the battle for the Volley of the Day, but he won the war of the Volley of the Season, carefully watching the ball drop from the sky at the edge of the box before guiding it into the bottom corner to rescue a 2-2 draw with Norwich, again with his first touch after coming off the bench. Somma’s finishing was becoming so ruthlessly predictable it was boring Bob Snodgrass, who couldn’t hide his exasperation while waiting for a pull back late on against Scunthorpe, forced to stand there and watch Somma score Leeds’ fourth with another low and accurate drive the ‘keeper could do little to stop.

5 years ago today, Davide Somma scored this goal against Norwich with his first touch. #lufc #SommaTime pic.twitter.com/BRkP7sChAf

— YBI (@YeboahBelieveIt) February 19, 2016

Cruel luck with injuries meant it couldn’t last. Somma scored just once more for Leeds, almost two years after his volley against Norwich. But Leeds still left a lasting impression on Somma’s life — in his retirement he caught up with his former roommate Mike Grella in New York and was introduced to one of Grella’s wife’s best friends, who Somma later married and started a family with.

Those thrilling few months remain fond memories for Leeds supporters. Even a compilation of Somma’s best moments for United make for an unusually pleasant early incarnation of a YouTube highlights video, backed by a calming loop of stock library music rather than a panic attack of EDM. Watching it back feels as warm as a three-pint buzz in a beer garden on a summer’s day, and as compelling as the ripple of a ball hitting the back of a net.