This summer is shaping up to be one of the very best in the history of Liverpool Football Club. Sadly, as we know only too well after taking the Mickey out of the neighbours, ‘winning the transfer window’ isn’t any sort of guarantee that what will follow will definitely be a successful season.
Even so, the fact that the Reds have decided to improve from a position of strength, setting themselves up for the next few years, can only be seen as a good thing for all concerned. Having sorted out the full-back positions, it now seems as though a talented young centre-back is going to be next through the door.
Who is Giovanni Leoni?
During his press conference ahead of the opening match of the Premier League season against Bournemouth on Friday night, Arne Slot confirmed that Liverpool are in advanced stages over the signing of 19-year-old Italian centre-back Giovanni Leoni. Given both his young age and the fact that he has spent the past year or so playing for Parma, you could be forgiven for not knowing a huge amount about the Italian defender. Born on the 21st of December 2006, he spent his youth at Italian clubs such as Vigontina, Cittadella and Padova, eventually breaking into the latter’s first team in 2023.
@zaantalksfooty 2 Good 2 Bad : Giovanni Leoni To Liverpool Is A Here We Go 🤩🤯 #liverpool #giovannileoni #leoni #transfers #premierleague ♬ original sound – ZaanTalksFooty
He only played one league game there before heading to Sampdoria on loan, playing for them in 12 league games before being bought permanently. He was then quickly moved to Parma, which is where the Reds have turned to in order to secure his signature. Having played 17 league games for the Serie A club, the feeling is that he is worth a risk from a group of people that normally like significantly more minutes under the belt of a player before they’re willing to sign him. The fact that he has been compared to Virgil van Dijk at around the same age might well explain why Liverpool are willing to take a risk, however.
Why Liverpool Want Him
Whilst the van Dijk comparisons might be exciting to hear, they are also likely to be a touch premature for a player who is still a teenager. Instead, it is likely to be the player’s dominant style of play that has caught Liverpool’s attention, especially given the fact that the team is otherwise quite small heading into the 2025-2026 Premier League campaign. As exciting as it has been to see us sign the likes of Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez and Florian Wirtz, none of them are particularly tall. Leoni deals with that problem almost single-handedly, coming in at around six foot five inches.
He can also play with both feet, which means that he will be well-placed to cover both van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté should either of them need to be taken out of the team for any reason. Good at covering spaces from a tactical point of view, he is also skilled when it comes to buildup play, which is obviously crucial in the modern game. The player himself said that he was inspired by van Dijk as well as Chris Smalling, with the fact that Jarell Quansah has left the club leaving an opening for another young defender to come in and fill. Although he needs to be patient, he is likely to get a number of chances to show supporters what he can do.
Not the Normal Italian Job
From a Liverpool point of view, the club will be hoping that Leoni makes a better impression than previous Italians who have been on their books. In the past, players such as Alberto Aquilani, Andrea Dossena and Mario Balotelli have all come from Italy in order to play for Liverpool and none of them have impressed. Federico Chiesa was the only signing that the Reds made last summer, but he failed to convince Arne Slot that he had what it takes to make it at Anfield and looks set to depart this summer with only a few appearances and even fewer goals to his name.
I for one cannot wait for Liverpool to sign another Italian.
— Sachin Nakrani (@sachinnakrani.bsky.social) 14 August 2025 at 10:25
The major difference when it comes to Leoni, though, is that the defender is still young enough for his skills and abilities to be honed and perfected by Arne Slot and his team. Whereas most of the other players arrived on Merseyside as fully-formed senior players, the same cannot be said of Leoni and he will therefore hopefully be much more likely to break the ‘Italian curse’ that Liverpool have suffered from when it comes to other players from his homeland. Of course, whether that actually ends up being the case or not is something that very much fits into the ‘remains to be seen’ category.
