Gianluca Busio, the MLS wonder boy

Between Carlos Vela, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney and Jozy Altidore, scrolling the MLS' top scorer list, there's a player with an Italian surname who has already scored twice: his name is Gianluca Busio and he's only 16 years old. Some of you may have heard about him last season, when the Italian American made his first American goal with the Sporting Kansas City shirt in Vancouver: an easy tap-in almost impossible to miss, that the Wizards striker was about to fail anyway.

This year, however, it started differently, as coach Vermes is using Busio more regularly, confirming that he was literally fallen in love with the number 13. Busio played four of the last five games, two of them as a starter, scoring two goals and serving an assist. And it doesn't matter if the goal of the draw against Cincinnati was a real gift from the host defense, or the one against Montreal was practically useless because it came on a score of 5-0.

Gianluca is the son of Alex, an Inter supporter from Brescia, and Dionne, from California, was born in North Carolina and lives in Kansas, where he was hosted by a new family thanks to the Residential Program organized by the Sporting Kansas City Academy for the young players who come from other countries, about 25% of the youngsters: in fact he's 100% American but has the Italian citizenship, and with our country they have a very strong relationship because they still spend the Christmas holidays in Lombardia. The passion for football has been transmitted to him mainly by his older brother, Matteo, but he is undoubtedly from another level. If physically Busio is still extremely light, Busio is often used as a third in midfield, actually like and offensive playmaker, who loves to receive and play the ball between the lines starting from the left out.

At the age of 15 with 89 days, he joined Sporting Kansas City; then made a decisive assist during his debut in the starting lineup; at 16 and 314 days, however, in the USA he was celebrated as the youngest player to have scored two consecutive goals: his precocity records immediately triggered the first heavy comparisons, above all the new Freddy Adu: the former DC United striker considered an absolute promise at the time and that has definitely failed, never becoming the footballer that everyone expected. The example that Busio must not follow at all.

Behind his explosion there is not only Vermes, but also Jon Parry, the Italian-American scout who works for Sporting Kansas City: at the moment Busio is in the squad roster with the status of homegrown player (who played in the youth team of the club and comes from the same geographical area, without affecting the salary cap) and has a contract that will expire in 2020 but can be renewed. On him it seems that many American but also European top clubs have already asked infos, above all Fulham and Inter Milan, who tried to took advantage of the window at the end of the year to woo him. But Busio at the moment will continue to grow in MLS, so we just have to follow him at a distance hoping to see him one day with the Azzurri shirt.