89: Samuele Dalla Bona, Chelsea, Merlin’s F.A. Premier League 2001 Official Sticker Collection

Some people were just meant to be footballers. Former Anderlecht star, and Championship Manager legend, Mark de Man must have had some interesting careers interviews in his youth and it’s fitting that he dominated a number of virtual defences during the 1990s. It’s a shame he was never paired with Blackburn Rovers’ Nicky Marker as the pair could have provided some much needed protection for the unfortunately named former France international goalkeeper Dominique Dropsy.

The concept of nominative determinism, where you gravitate towards a career befitting your name, was first coined in a New Scientist article in 1994 which highlighted a recent polar exploration by Dan Snowman and could provide some explanation for the aforementioned footballers. Outside of these more obvious/comical examples there are some former stars who just sound like they were meant to be footballers. Can you imagine Alessandro Del Piero working at your local petrol station? Or Bebeto answering the phone when you needed to renegotiate your internet contract? You also wouldn’t bat an eyelid at similar names emerging in the beloved form of a preposterously talented Championship/Football Manager regen which is exactly the kind of player I presumed Sam Dalla Bona would be when he broke through at Chelsea at the turn of the century.

Dalla Bona began his career in the youth team at Atalanta and was already captaining Italy’s under-18s when he made the move to Stamford Bridge in October 1998. In his first season in West London he scored an impressive sixteen goals from midfield for the club’s reserves, long before any embittered Everton managers were doing similar, and finished with the club’s Young Player of the Year award alongside the second string’s Golden Boot. He made his first team debut in the Champions League in the 1999/2000 campaign, replacing Didier Deschamps in a 3-1 win over Feyenoord, but made just two further appearances as Gianluca Vialli’s side picked up the FA Cup in the last final to be held at the original, and far superior, Wembley Stadium. When Vialli was replaced with compatriot Claudio Ranieri Dalla Bona got a decent run in the first team across the next two seasons as the goals of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen helped the Blues qualify for the UEFA Cup and reach the 2002 FA Cup final where they lost to Arsenal. 

The departures of Dennis Wise and Gus Poyet during the 2001/02 season had seemingly created a Sam Dalla Bona shaped hole in the heart of Chelsea’s midfield but the Italian’s desire to move home saw him depart for AC Milan for £1m in June 2002. If Dalla Bona had also expressed a desire to win trophies then his first season with the Rossoneri wouldn’t have disappointed as he picked up Coppa Italia and Champions League winner’s medals. It is more likely, however, that he would have liked to have played more than four Serie A games during his four year spell at the San Siro. Due to the competition for places in the Milan midfield, including the imperious Andrea Pirlo and gritty Gennaro Gattuso, Dalla Bona gained far more game time during loan spells at Bologna, Lecce and Sampdoria before departing permanently for Napoli in 2006.

A positive start in Naples helped his new club gain promotion to Serie A but once again Dalla Bona found himself out of the first team picture. He attempted to revitalise his career at West Ham United and Fulham but instead ended up at Iraklis in Greece. This loan spell, however, was terminated after just three months and three appearances as he struggled to adjust to his temporary club due to a lack of match fitness. His final year with Napoli was spent, once again, on loan at boyhood club Atalanta where he made a solitary performance for the first team in the Coppa Italia before departing permanently for Mantova in 2011 to be nearer his ill father. After just one season in the fourth tier he called time on his playing career as he struggled to come to terms with his father’s death.

On paper Sam Dalla Bona’s career sounds like one matching the name, and popstar good looks, of an Italian football legend with spells at some of Europe’s biggest clubs and a Champions League medal in his trophy cabinet. Sadly the reality did not match his superstar moniker or early career potential as he finished his thirteen-year professional career having made only 189 appearances. In 2014 Dalla Bona stated “if only I could turn back time, I would have stayed in England forever. In Italy, football’s repulsive, particularly everything which goes on around it. The pressure, the mentality – I’m not made out for the Italian culture.” Maybe without Claudio Ranieri’s infamous tinkering he could have been a key component of the Abramovich era at Stamford Bridge. Then again, if the time machine remains in the realms of science fiction, there’s a ready-made backstory waiting for an excellently named Football Manager regen.