Lorenzo Lucca does not exactly look back on his short-lived period at Ajax with a good feeling. The tall Italian striker hardly got time to play in Amsterdam and was therefore happy that Udinese signed up for him last summer.

“I have had two negative experiences, also due to injuries,” Lucca said in conversation Football Italy know that Ajax was not really a success for him. “And that certainly bothered me. So I hoped that things would go well at Udinese.”

“After playing in the youth academies of Torino and Brescia, I went to Palermo, which played in Serie C,” Lucca, who is only 23 and 2.01 meters tall, looks back on his early career. “I thought I was playing at a lower level, but actually I had just started climbing. I learned new things and scored fourteen times in Serie C.”

Lucca has been wearing the Udinese shirt for six months, where he can really work on his development as an attacker. “With the help of an important person from Turin, someone who really believes in me. We analyze the match images and look not only at the goals, but also at the mistakes.”

“And I study how Haaland moves,” Lucca takes Manchester City's top scorer as an example. “He has about the same physicality and is a real monster, even though he is left-footed and I am not. I am working on how I move in the box and how I can score against certain defenders in Serie A.”

“You always have to be focused on the ball, the goal and the defender. As an attacker, I have to shadow the defenders and use a mental map to understand how to dominate my defender. I study a lot, that's the only way I can become a important footballer.”

Ajax
The ambitious Lucca played sixteen matches for Ajax last season and fourteen appearances on behalf of Jong Ajax. He left Amsterdam with eight goals to his name. At Udinese the counter now stands at five goals.

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