Willy Gnonto learned Latin so Leeds could go up — Square Ball 1/10/24

Nemo propheta in patria

Written by: Chris McMenamy

Willy Gnonto drifted infield, played a pass and occupied space in the middle of the Leeds United attack. A few seconds later, he smashed the ball through Coventry ‘keeper Ben Wilson’s hands to put Leeds in front. Nerves were settled, somewhat, as a long period of pressure to begin Saturday’s match ended with a Leeds goal.

If anyone is going to drive Leeds United to promotion this year, it’s Willy Gnonto. Sometime in April, Gnonto might cut in from the wing and whack one into the corner of the goal, and that’ll be it, the completion of the ultimate redemption arc almost two years on from refusing to play so he could leave for some joke of a club like Everton.

When you look at Gnonto’s time at the club as a whole, as well as historical Leeds United promotions, it’s all been building up to this. In 1990, it was Gordon Strachan, then thirty years later it was Pablo Hernandez. The man who decides Leeds’ fate, sometimes through almost divine intervention. Strachan was 33 when he scored that famous goal against Leicester, however, and Pablo rolled in that unforgettable winner at Swansea aged 35. Gnonto is 20.

It’s easy to forget that. I often calculate how young somebody is by determining which World Cup is the first one they really remember. For Willy, it’s 2014. That’s how young he is. His earliest memory of football’s greatest tournament likely involved watching Bryan Ruiz and Costa Rica beat Willy’s homeland Italy.

It seems foolish to pin our hopes on someone, especially a player so young, but that’s exactly what Leeds did last season and is the kind of player that Daniel Farke’s teams need to thrive. It’s all about finding that player who makes you want to leave the pub.

Gnonto came to Leeds as the transfer deadline approached in summer 2022. The club were a mess throughout his first season, but he still managed to capture the imagination, starting with his run that led to Crysencio Summerville’s winner at Liverpool — AKA the goal that relegated Leeds. We had the volley against Cardiff and then that amazing goal against Manchester United, but that season ended with Gnonto on the bench more often than not, scuppered by the squeaking arses of Javi Gracia and Sam Allardyce.

Instability in the dugout, dressing room and boardroom. Relegation in your first season after — presumably — you received a frantic pitch about European ambitions from Victor Orta right before he dragged you to the third country of your professional career, aged 18, on a few hours’ notice. In hindsight, I can start to see why Gnonto went on strike in August 2023 as he tried to force a move out of Leeds. After all, much more experienced footballers than him had done it. Some even threatened legal action against the club.

The Championship offered Gnonto a chance to shine brighter, but he didn’t see that initially. Last season could have been so much more for him, but it seems that the stop-start first few months left him playing catch up. Perhaps this term is his real redemption campaign, much like Brenden Aaronson.

Despite his brief spell of immaturity in 2023, Gnonto is an incredibly accomplished young man. He was nicknamed the ‘Latinist goalscorer’ by his mates because of his love for classical studies. Days after he debuted for Italy in June 2022, he sat the Italian equivalent of A-levels. As reported in Gazzetta dello Sport: ‘During the oral exam he spoke about Oscar Wilde (in English) and the works of Leopardi.’

The Latin phrase ‘Nemo propheta in patria’, or ‘no one is a prophet in their own land’ is fairly appropriate to his story, having left Italy for Switzerland at 16 in search of first team football. He joined Inter Milan’s academy, one of the best in Italy, aged eight, but left in 2020 because, in his own words after joining Leeds: “If I had stayed in Italy, I would still be in the Primavera [youth championship] today.”

Italian football finds itself in a long-running battle with its own prejudices against young players, an issue which permeates in wider society where men are often considered ‘young’ well into their thirties. Simone Pafundi made his debut for Italy in November 2022 aged 16 and became the youngest Italian international in over a century. But he couldn’t break into Udinese’s team and left to join Lausanne in Switzerland. His career had stalled for over a year in Udine, where coach Andrea Sottil repeatedly told the media he couldn’t find space in the team for the best prodigy the club had produced in years.

Gnonto saw the path that lay ahead of him and showed courage, moving north of the Alps to play for Zurich. His two years there earned him the move to Leeds, which prompted questions in Italy as to why nobody took a punt on this £4m teenage international. Napoli, Fiorentina and Sassuolo had all offered loan deals with an option to buy but none were brave enough to make a real financial commitment in buying Gnonto straight away. Serie A’s loss, Leeds’ gain. Perhaps the allure of the Premier League meant Willy was never really returning to Serie A, but as his dad once said: “[Willy] is an Inter fan and dreams of returning to play with the Nerazzurri. When he left, he was very sad.”

It’s hardly surprising. Lifelong Inter fan Federico Dimarco left the club for Switzerland in 2017, citing a lack of first-team opportunities. He returned a year later and eventually broke into the side. Now, he’s Italy’s starting left-back playing alongside Riccardo Calafiori, who joined Basel after being dumped out of Roma by Jose Mourinho. Two years later, he started for Italy at Euro 2024 having been the Serie A Defender of the Year at Bologna, before joining Arsenal for almost £50m in July. No Serie A player dreams of playing in Switzerland, but it’s a sacrifice that some feel they need to make for the sake of their career, like Dimarco, Calafiori, and now Pafundi.

Gnonto has spoken in the past about the sacrifices his parents made to get him to football. “Many times there was no money to go to Milan for training,” he said. “My mother worked in a hotel in Baveno and hoped for tips to pay for gas. When I was little I didn’t realise, but now that I’m 18 these things register with me.”

Those sacrifices guided Gnonto to where he is today, the leading light in Leeds United’s latest attempted charge toward the Premier League. Failure to achieve promotion opened the door for a potential exit in the summer. Rather, Gnonto stuck around and signed a new deal, which Leeds claim does not include a release clause.

The club’s failure to sign a number 10 has resulted in Farke experimenting with different solutions behind striker Mateo Joseph. Aaronson has played there, but more recently we’ve seen a rotation among the wingers, and it was noticeable that Gnonto occupied the 10 ‘space’ when he opened the scoring on Saturday.

Might we see more of him there? Watching highlights of him at Zurich suggested that he could do a lot of damage centrally, and Leeds could do worse than playing him in that role. It’s perhaps telling of his versatility that he has scored six of his fifteen Leeds goals with his weaker left foot.

If you want my tactical advice, I’d say let Willy do what he wants, when he wants, so long as he keeps doing what he’s doing which, more often than not, means helping Leeds United win football matches.