Rossi to make united step up
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Joe the Red set to make a mark
WITH Wayne Rooney in the bag and Cristiano Ronaldo back in the fold, Manchester United are already keeping a careful eye on another teen sensation.
Sixteen-year-old Italian kid Giuseppe Rossi has made a big impact in the junior ranks at Old Trafford following his low-key transfer from Parma in the summer.
And after netting three goals in two games for the under-18 side and then smashing in a wonder goal for the junior reserve side against Rochdale last week, Rossi has staff and teammates raving.
Now United stalwart Arthur Albiston believes that Rossi, whose name literally translates as " Joe the Red", could be pushing for a place in the first team by the end of this season.
His goal for the reserves was a masterpiece. Picking the ball up deep, he ran at the Rochdale defence, swerved to the right across the edge of the 18-yard box and beat one defender with a bewildering switch of feet.
Taking it wide of the last defender, he beat the man with a drag of the left foot and crashed an unstoppable shot in off the near post. Albiston has seen clips of Rossi in action and says: " He is a box of tricks, a real bundle of energy.
" He doesn´t look the tallest player, but he has a low centre of gravity and great control with both feet. It doesn´t matter if you are slow, when you have that low centre of gravity and can get away from people quite quickly.
" He looks an exciting prospect. The goal he scored for the reserves, the defenders didn´t know what to do - he teased them in and finished it like Ole Solskjaer. You expected him to cross and he fired it in off the post. It wasn´t a bad strike for his supposedly weaker right foot."
Rossi´s teammates in the junior sides say he is the best finisher they have ever seen and Albiston adds: " When you get praise from your teammates, it doesn´t come any higher. The lad hasn´t been at the club long and has already made a big impression.
" Hopefully he´s another one who might be getting a sniff of first-team action later in the season."
Rossi almost slipped in through the back door in the summer, amid the arrivals of Alan Smith for £6million and Gabriel Heinze for £6.9million.
The American-born player can do a job as a striker or an attacking midfielder and is already established as an Italian under-19 international.
Rossi arrived as part of United´s cosmopolitan youth development rogramme which last season brought in German midfielder Markus Neumayr, American pair Kenny Cooper and Jonathan Spector, Belgian defender Floribert Ngalula and Finnish forward Jami Puustinen.
That programme has been pushed to a new level by the capture of Rossi, of promising young Spanish defender Gerard Pique from Barcelona and of 15-year-old Cologne goalkeeper Ron-Robert Zieler last month - three players from the three strongest Continental leagues
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