Official: Luca Pellegrini Loaned to Cagliari

He’s said to be the next predestined Roman. The next to join the long list of Romans who have proudly donned the giallorosso after coming through the youth ranks. However, 19 year old Luca Pellegrini has found playing time difficult hard to come by in his first season as a member of the senior squad. With six total appearances, Pellegrini has been closed out of playing time by veteran Aleksandar Kolarov this season and as with any young player, it’s tough to grow and improve if you can’t get on the field.

With this in mind, Roma decided to send Pellegrini away on loan to Cagliari, with the hope he will get more playing time in Sardegna. Pellegrini heads to Cagliari on a six month dry loan; no option to buy. Roma have far from given up on the youngster. This is a straightforward move intended to increase Pellegrini’s playing time and Serie A experience, so that he can be a contributor for Roma in the near future. With Kolarov on the decline, Roma will need a new left-back sooner rather than later.

In Cagliari, Pellegrini moves to a bottom half of the table team that currently sits in 14th place on 21 points. Rolando Maran’s men sit seven points above the relegation zone and likely won’t get dragged into the fray, but are looking to ensure that by energizing the squad a bit with moves like these. Pellegrini sounded excited about the move, when asked about it by Sky Sport Italia.

“It’s all done, I am very happy to be a Cagliari player and can’t wait to start this new adventure. I am here with the best intentions and tomorrow morning hope to be training with my new teammates. I already spoke to Coach Rolando Maran, but we just introduced ourselves, nothing more than that.”

Cagliari plays in a 4-3-1-2 formation, which means they employ a traditional left-back; Luca’s natural position. Currently occupying that position are 34 year old ex-Juve man Simone Padoin (15 starts) and 25 year old Greek Charalampos Lykogiannis (4 starts). One would think that the young, talented Pellegrini will be given every chance to win some starts at left-back under Maran.

We’ve seen moves like this backfire on Roma in the past, where a young player on loan has rotted away on someone else’s bench rather than its own. However, with an aging Padoin and a relatively unknown Lykogiannis currently occupying the position, it seems like a player with Luca’s talents should see a decent amount of minutes if he performs well in training and is able to carry it over onto the field. Roma and Romanisti will be hoping that this is the step that gets Pellegrini’s development jump-started, before a long career in the Capital.