No matter how many goals he scores in Serie A, or the Champions League for that matter, Gianluca Scamacca’s reputation will always be tainted on English shores by his ill-fated stint at West Ham United.
As European football oracle Andy Brassell explained, before Atalanta were beaten 2-0 by Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of their Champions League play-off on Tuesday night, that is more than a little unfair.
And when you place Gianluca Scamacca next to some of the other striking flops to don the claret and blue jersey – Benni McCarthy, Simone Zaza and Marouane Chamakh never scored a single goal, for instance – the Italy international could be forgiven for feeling slightly hard done by.
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The £27 million signing from Sassuolo suffered his fair share of injury problems in East London. And, when fit, David Moyes tended to prefer Michail Antonio up front instead.
Scamacca was anything but a poor centre-forward – he is showing back home in Italy just how talented he is – but instead a poor fit for a manager who wanted a number nine to press from the front, run the channels, and bully defenders.
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Andy Brassell feels West Ham United spell damaged Gianluca Scamacca’s reputation
Brassell remains a fully paid-up member of the Scamacca fanclub. And, speaking on talkSPORT, he can envisage a world in which the one-time Roma youngster leaves Atalanta for another big-money Premier League switch.
Or, at least, he could envisage that. If not for the West Ham stint which leaves a black mark against his name in the eyes of some.
“Atalanta have looked much improved under [coach Raffaele] Palladino recently,” Brassell said. “Of course, they beat Chelsea towards the end of the knockout stage to get themselves in this position.”
Scamacca scored the winner against Enzo Maresca’s side that day in December.
“They’ve got what is kind of a rare commodity in European football at the moment; an old-fashioned centre-forward who really looks the part,” Brassell points out.
“You know what? If he hadn’t failed at West Ham already, people would be looking at Gianluca Scamacca and the way he’s played over the last couple of months and thinking, ‘Yeah, some Premier League club is going to pick him up.'”
Hammers missed out on Borussia Dortmund talisman Serhou Guirassy
Atalanta will need Scamacca to be at his most superhuman in the return leg in Bergamo, though, with Nico Kovac’s Dortmund placing one foot firmly into the last-16.
The prolific Serhou Guirassy fired BVB in front just three minutes in on Tuesday night. A lead that would be doubled by the equally in-form Maximilian Beier.
It is no secret that West Ham tried to sign Guirassy when he was playing in France with Amiens, two years before they spent big bringing Scamacca to the London Stadium.
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“He had had a firm offer from West Ham in January,” the president of Amiens, Bernard Joannin, said back in 2020.
“[But Guirassy] asked to stay.”
Now one of the most potent centre-forwards in all of European football, Guirassy scored a staggering 38 goals in 50 Dortmund games last term. His opener against Scamacca’s Atalanta was his 16th of the current campaign.
One can only guess, if he had accepted West Ham’s offer, if we would still be talking about the so-called striker ‘curse’ of the London Stadium. A ‘curse’ which appears to have struck down Pablo Felipe. January signing Pablo is unavailable for the foreseeable future, as confirmed by Nuno Espirito Santo before the 1-0 FA Cup win at Burton Albion.
“He is going to be out for a while. We don’t know exactly how long,” Nuno said last week. “But his injury is a big blow for us.
“We don’t know [how serious it is at this stage]. We have to assess it, day by day.”
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