Surprises are a dying phenomenon in top-level football. Gone are the days of mystery, the digital age has coincided with the exhaustive reporting of every little detail, from initial scout missions to final medical checks. So when League Two’s Salford City, out of nowhere, announced the signing of ex-Premier League folk hero Fabio Borini on a quiet October evening, we took notice.
It was a dopamine hit for niche-loving football nerds, marking the return of a proper “streets won’t forget” player – not your Hatem Ben Arfas and Michus, who everyone and their dog remembers.
Bred at Chelsea, gambled on by Liverpool and cherished at Sunderland, the spine of the Italian’s career has been on English soil. After eight years away, the move to Salford acts as a return to where he considers to be his footballing home. “Even on paper, I classify as homegrown in England and not in Italy. My football mentality is mostly English,” Borini tells The Independent on a drizzly, grey afternoon in Manchester. Luckily, he’s already accustomed to the weather.
And while it may have caught the masses off-guard, Borini’s Salford switch was the happy outcome of weeks of toil. The striker, now 34, had been training with Karl Robinson’s side for a month before putting pen to paper. “It wasn’t always the intention (to sign),” he stresses, purely grateful for the opportunity to keep fit after a summer in the PFA free agents programme. “I’m mature enough to understand circumstances in football.”
Borini says he had heard of Salford prior to getting the call from Ammies first-team coach Alex Bruce. “I obviously knew about it because of the media attention they created with the owners,” he says, referring to the Class of 92’s takeover of the club in 2014 – though only David Beckham and Gary Neville remain shareholders as part of a new consortium. However, there was no contact with Neville or Beckham in the signing process. “He (Neville) wasn’t part of the deal. There was nothing coming from above.”
Ironically, the topic of Neville would overshadow his debut, a derby win against Oldham. Protestors aligned with far-right party Britain First stormed the Peninsula Stadium pitch with England flags after the Manchester United legend pulled down a union jack from one of his development sites and claimed “angry, middle-aged white men” were the cause of division the UK.
But Borini isn’t focused on off-pitch matters. With Salford third in League Two, promotion is the goal. And having experienced play-off joy while on loan at Swansea in 2011, Borini returns to the Football League chasing that unique, euphoric feeling.
“The target of promotion, trying to achieve something that will make history and be remarkable in Salford’s history, it’s something I look for,” he says. “You don’t just want to play football with friends; you want to play football to win games and achieve something. If your name can be alongside the history you can create, it’s good storytelling for the kids.”
Promotion to the Premier League with the Swans isn’t Borini’s only fond Wembley memory. His most famous goal came in the 2014 League Cup final, leaving the imperious Vincent Kompany in his dust before firing home to give Sunderland a shock lead against Manchester City. “It’s one of the favourites,” Borini affirms, recalling the highlight of a final Sunderland went on to lose 3-1.
Wearside was where Borini’s brightest days in the English top-flight came. It acted as salvation after his big move to Liverpool in 2012 failed to go to plan.
His two seasons at Anfield marked the third time he had played under Brendan Rodgers, having been coached by the Northern Irishman at Chelsea youth and Swansea. Rodgers was last week accused by Celtic owner Dermot Desmond of being “divisive, misleading and self-serving” in an acrimonious exit from the Scottish club.
“Skip,” Borini remarks instinctively when asked about his relationship with Rodgers, before expanding after an awkward laugh. “It was alright. I played for him three times. Liverpool was a bit difficult for me in terms of getting game time. I was expecting more from myself. He was probably expecting more from me also. We just move on. Football is football. You just keep going, nothing else.”
He spoke far more fondly of other managers, having worked for Italians at both ends of the character spectrum. At Sunderland, he played under the renowned madman Paolo Di Canio for a mere 20 days before his countryman was sacked. He was later managed for a far more significant 18 months by the Azzurri’s legendary midfield enforcer Gennaro Gattuso at AC Milan. “Gattuso is one of those guys who will give you everything and you feel it. He’s not fake, he’s not ‘built’ his character; he is how he is. You know exactly where you stand with him.”
With the outlandish came the quietly ingenious, with Borini bookending his career with stints under the tutelage of Carlo Ancelotti and Andrea Pirlo, two of the best footballing minds to come out of Europe let alone his homeland. Borini previously shared the field with elegant playmaker Pirlo during his one and only cap for Italy in 2012. He regards representing his country as “the most special thing” and from his time in the Italian setup comes to the conclusion that Pirlo is one of the two best players he ever played with.
The other name was not Luis Suarez, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard or Didier Drogba, but to name a few of his former teammates. It was Mario Balotelli. “Balotelli was one of the best because of his technical abilities,” he declares, lauding the striker he played alongside in the 2014/15 campaign. “He was a great player with not much control of his mind.”
Borini and Balotelli’s shared season at Liverpool coincided with the club’s sharp post-Suarez fall-off, with Ricky Lambert completing an attacking trio that had much to be desired in terms of output. They managed just four Premier League goals between them that year. While unfair to brand him the posterboy, much of Borini’s time at Liverpool came during a part of their history that isn’t looked back upon fondly by the fans. The same goes for his spell at Milan, which came smack-bang in the middle of the Rossoneri’s 11-year drought without a Serie A title. He insists this doesn’t affect him: “Why would I care?”
Rather than lamenting the past, Borini chooses to focus on the present. As a player, he has a job to do at Salford. As a fan, he is racked with nerves about the Azzurri’s bid to qualify for a first World Cup since 2014, with the “risky” play-offs looming. “Certain nations should always be in the World Cup, regardless of what they do in qualification. Italy, you feel, is one of those countries,” he asserts. But it’s Italy’s shortcomings of late that make him happy to be back in England, drawing to the inspiration of the Lionesses as a welcome influence on his young daughter.
“The Lionesses for England, they won the Euros back-to-back, and that doesn’t mean they just won the cup twice. It means young girls want to play football a lot more,” Borini says. “It makes me feel like she (his daughter) can do whatever she wants. I think that’s a great opportunity for young girls like my daughter in the future, that they can even have that option. It’s not just a closed door.”
England appears to be the land of opportunity for both daughter and father. Borini is embarking on his latest career chapter at his 11th club. It hasn’t taken long for him to bed in with his new surroundings.
