RETURN of the MACH
United title winner is firing again... in Italy’s second tier
THE boy wonder is 25 and has a baby son of his own, two-month-old Lorenzo. Federico Macheda will never be forgotten for his title-winning impact on Manchester United at 17 but he is determined it will not be the only thing for which his career is remembered.
It is eight years since Macheda scored a dramatic winner on his debut against Aston Villa and was immediately compared with Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, not least by his own manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
Yet this afternoon (Sunday), he will be playing in a modest Serie B game for his current club Novara against Bari rather than being involved in a big World Cup qualifier like many of his former teammates.
The truth is Macheda disappeared from public gaze nearly as quickly as he arrived, going through six different loan spells and two disastrous seasons at Cardiff City where back problems left him feeling paralysed before he decided to return home to Italy to rebuild his career.
It is early days but so far signs suggest ‘Kiko’ made the right move. Now fit and pain-free for the first time since he left Old Trafford in 2014, he is back on the goal trail with two in his last four games.
Macheda views events of three years ago as critical. He had just scored 10 goals in 10 starts on loan at Birmingham City when his United contract ran out and he signed for Cardiff City, who were ambitious and eyeing an immediate return to the Premier League.’
‘Then I started getting back problems in pre-season,’ he says. ‘I’d be out for six weeks, come back, struggle again. It got to the stage where I couldn’t move or even feel my legs, particularly the right one.
‘Eventually, I had an operation. I had a disc pushing on my sciatic nerve and they cut it out. Looking back I wish I’d had the op a lot earlier. It basically took two years out of my career.’
Macheda then had the task of rediscovering his overall fitness. After agreeing with Cardiff to terminate his contract in August, he trained and built up his conditioning on his own until he felt ready to sign for Novara.
The small city, situated between Turin and Milan, is better known for tree-lined boulevards and beautiful surrounding hills than football. Gates average just 5,000.
Yet for Macheda — who wears the No10 shirt — it is the perfect environment after having had to cope with overnight celebrity status at United, and the accompanying Italian Stallion headlines.
He describes his new start as ‘Year Zero’ and his arrival has coin- cided with the team’s nine-game unbeaten run. This afternoon’s match takes place at Bari’s Stadio San Nicola where England played their final match of Italia 90 in a third-placed play-off against the hosts.
‘I feel like a new player, as fit as I’ve ever been i n my career,’ Macheda says. ‘I thought Italy was the best place for me to start again. It’s my culture and language so I haven’t needed time to adapt.
‘ I had different offers but the directors of Novara convinced me i t was a serious club. We are between AC Milan, Inter, Juventus and Torino but we have our own fan base as well.
‘I’d say the standard of Serie B is similar to the Championship but Italian coaches are more tactically prepared. Teams prepare all week on the defence.
‘It’s harder to score goals but Italy also has a good tradition for producing centre-forwards and they know the position. I played Under21s with Manolo Gabbiadini and I’m not surprised how well he’s done at Southampton. The opposition fans give me attention because I played for United but that can be a good thing.’ Macheda was the Marcus Rashford of his day, curling a 90th minute winner against Villa in his first appearance and then netting the decisive goal at Sunderland the following weekend. It proved critical as United ended up 2008-09 Premier League champions, four points ahead of Liverpool. But he went on to score only three more times for the club and received nearly as much publicity for being pictured with glamorous women on social media. He does not berate himself for what happened. ‘I don’t think I failed in England. I was 15, nearly 16, when I came to Manchester with a dream to play in the Premier League, and I did it,’ he says. ‘The expectations for a 17-yearold were always unrealistic, not from inside the club but outside.’ If competing against Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov and Robin van Persie was always a big ask, his form in various loan moves was disappointing and he failed to score any goals for four of the clubs he played for: QPR, Sampdoria, Stuttgart and Nottingham Forest. The exceptions were Championship clubs Doncaster and Birmingham where he scored a total of 13 goals in 2013-14 and helped the Blues escape relegation. His time with Novara has helped him become ambitious again. ‘My priority now is doing well for this club but of course I want to play in Serie A or the Premier League in the future,’ he says. ‘You never have to stop dreaming as a footballer and I think I have the ability to play at the top.’ First, though, it is B aria nd Macheda must finally feel his luck is changing. His goal at Avellino last weekend came off his back. The one he has been cursing for the last three years.