Savarese Interview

Giovanni Savarese is unique. Now twenty nine years of age, a free scoring International in his prime, he is plying his trade at Swansea City Football Club. Many would have noticed his name appearing as a Swansea goalscorer in recent months, the reason being that this is Giovanni’s forte’. He scores goals.

Already a hero of the Swansea North Bank, he has scored crucial goals so far this season that has kept Swansea City in with a slight sniff of staying in division two. The clubs relegation dog fight, as predicted by many, is taking shape, and Giovanni Savarese is in the thick of the battle, scoring goals for Swansea City.

Savarese’s football story though shows even more fight and a lot of courage. The man who trains on Swansea’s open beach front with other imports like Walter Boyd, David Romo and recent loan signings from Paris St Germain, Matthias Verschave and Nicholas Fabiano has achieved a lot in the game and as he says

“When you are from Venezuela the onus is on you to achieve. We have countries like Brazil and Argentina right next to us, it’s not that we feel inferior, we are a proud country and very much like Wales alongside England we can be very easily forgotten”

Giovanni Savarese was born in to an Italian migrant family in Caracas, Venezuela in 1971. His father originally from Salerno in Italy, his mother from Naples. Their Italian traditions and connections are not lost on him. His brother Hugo Savarese, who Giovanni freely admits is the talented one in the family, still plays for Caracas today.

Giovanni started playing football at six years of age. “I was playing for Centro Italiano Venezolano from a very young age, this team was based in Caracas with big Italian connections, lots of Italian kids played there. We were a very big family. I had major influences at this club, Perico Leon, who played for Peru in the 1970 World Cup and Jurandir Procopio a great Brazillian coach. I knew then I wanted to be a soccer player full time.

Moving on to Deportivo Italia, a Venezuelan first division club at fifteen he began learning quickly, but not as a striker as a midfielder. “Badu Viera who went on to manage Costa Rica and Iran was influential as a coach with me at Deportivo, he recognised my true position and changed my role in the team at seventeen. Badu helped me so much”

Gio’s rewards were two fold, he was representing the national side and recalls his first taste of International football. “I was with the under sixteen side in a South American Cup tournament in Peru in 1986. It was incredible and I scored against Brazil “By 1988 Giovanni was in the under 18 national side but still as a midfielder. That year he played five games in another South American Cup tournament held in Argentina concentrating his efforts on defence. “That tournament opened doors for me, I moved from there to the national side proper and made my debut against Colombia in front of twenty thousand people, ” I scored the winning goal, it was a great feeling to score for my country “

The Interview Continues here……

The full Giovanni Savarese interview with pictures is available in Junes edition of Total Football, subscribe at http://www.futurenet.co.uk/ufn which comes out on Friday.

Thanks to Total Football writer Keith Haynes we get in to the real Giovanni Savarese, read between the lines if you wish, the sad fact is we should make the best of him, because the man from Caracas has only the FAW Cup to go, and then it’s decision time!

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