Signing a 20-year-old Italian from Juventus probably wasn’t on any Crawley Town fan’s bingo card when it came to signings this summer.
Fans were surprised and delighted when the club announced they had signed Gianmarco Di Biase to add firepower to their frontline.
Reds has made a lot of signings over the last few summers including some gems from Non-League as well as experienced players fans already knew.
But Di Biase’s signing came a little out of leftfield - but Colin Kazim-Richards has hinted there could be more signings like that to come.
Gianmarco Di Biase in pre-season training | Picture courtesy of Crawley Townplaceholder image
Gianmarco Di Biase in pre-season training | Picture courtesy of Crawley Town
The Reds boss has a wide knowledge of world football having played in many different countries including Brazil, Mexico and Turkey.
And when asked if the club could be making more signings like Di Biase, he told us: “100 per cent. When it happens, I'm not sure. I'm not telling you tomorrow we'll go and sign someone from Argentina.But yes, that was always on the card. I've played everywhere, I've seen people everywhere, I've played against people everywhere and people need an opportunity to come and show and prove to themselves that they can do it here.
“It's not for anybody else but for me to believe in that and that's what I will be doing. It is not every day.”
And Kaqzim-Richards is excited about what the Italian can bring to Crawley Town.
“Gianmarco is a top talent but talent is talent,” he said. “He has to come, he has to prove it and he has to put the work in and his mindset shows he's very willing to do that. He's been scoring goals since he was 16 years old.
“I've seen things being said here and things being said there. I put it down to this, if there was a 16-year-old scoring 17 goals in the first season in the National League, for example, there'd be a lot of clubs throwing their hat trying to get him, right? We've done very good business in terms of bringing him here, doing business with [Giorgio] Chiellini, someone I know quite well, being able to negotiate that and get him here.
“Gianmarco is someone I've known for a while in terms of the way he plays, going around, watching different games and it's someone that was identified that could help us.”