Inside Football: Michele Fornasier on his time with Manchester United and a possible return to England

The former Manchester United, Fiorentina and Sampdoria defender is now a Serie A defender with Pescara. He tells Andy Mitten about his career playing with his ‘brother’ Paul Pogba and winning the FA Youth Cup with Man United.

"I was born in Vittorio Veneto, a small town of 28,000 near Venice, and raised in a humble, working class family. As a child I supported Inter Milan because I adored Ronaldo – the phenomenon. Inter Milan scouts actually watched me along with scouts from Fiorentina, Juve and Atalanta, but in the end I went to Fiorentina at 13. That meant leaving the family home to move to Florence, but this was no problem for me.

"I was already bored and didn’t want to follow their rules. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would have been for them to see their kid go away, but I went to Florence by myself and I loved it, it was the best year of my life.

"Things went well. I was playing for the national team at 16 and then David Williams, a scout from Manchester United, contacted my parents. I told them that there was no chance of my going to England, that I didn’t want to go. I was captain of my Fiorentina team; I was happy and had no need to move anywhere.

"I didn’t even like United because they always won everything. I was bored of them winning and I liked the underdogs. Even when United played Chelsea in the 2008 Champions League final I wanted Chelsea to win. So I said no to Manchester United.

"But I watched United and I saw that they gave a chance to a young Italian player, Federico Macheda. Not only did they give him a chance, he scored a really important goal. That made me think that English teams were not scared to put young players in the first team. In Italy, they always went for experience and there were hardly any chances for young players.

"I was asked to play with an older year group at Fiorentina, which was supposed to be promoting me. In reality, I didn’t play so much and became frustrated. Every footballer wants to play football and I was thinking, ‘If it’s like this now, imagine what it’s going to be like when I go to the first team’. So I started to think more and more about United.

"I went to England and saw Manchester for a few days. They showed me the training ground. It was like paradise for a footballer, so much better than anything I had seen in Italy. I thought: ‘If you don’t make it here then you won’t make it anywhere’.

"Fiorentina were not happy about me going and complained to FIFA (who took no action as Fiorentina failed to provide evidence), but I went anyway. The weather was a shock, but I learned to love it. Besides, it’s better to play in the cold than the heat of an Italian summer.

"I couldn’t speak English either and even though I had classes with a really good teacher and was immersed in a dressing room of people speaking English, I would just say ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’ and agree with everyone for my first year there. My English eventually improved and it started to become natural for me to speak in it.

"Like almost all the young players, I lived in digs in Sale with a nice family and I attended a local school, but I knew I would be judged by what I did on a football field. English football was so much more intense, so much tougher. Something which would have been a foul in Italy was not a foul in England, but I grew to respect and love the English mentality towards football. I was also in a very good age group, with some excellent teammates.

"In my team we had Paul Pogba, Tom Thorpe, Michael Keane, Will Keane, Ravel Morrison, Jesse Lingard, Sam Johnstone, Zeki Fryers and Ryan Tunnicliffe. Paul, Jesse and Sam are still at United, while Will Keane has done really well and I’m pleased for him.

"Pogba was a real showman, something different. It’s not intentional how he acts, he’s just different and everything seems to come naturally to him. He’s got the personality of a champion, he doesn’t feel any pressure. When we played in big FA Youth Cup matches against Chelsea, a few of us were nervous. Yet Paul was laughing, smiling and always delivering on the pitch. Maybe that confidence came from being so good. Paul was made to be a top footballer.

"We spent a lot of time together because we both arrived without much English, then we both went to school together. We both played at United and then both went to Serie A.

The Italian goes in hard on AC Milan's Bonaventura

"We were always trying to reach the level he was at. When he went to Juventus he was heralded as a wonder kid, but I knew how good he was from playing with him.

"Ravel Morrison was very talented too. And interesting. Ryan Tunnicliffe was a great guy, very Mancunian and upfront.

"I was playing for the reserves and got to a level where I was on top of my game. I was confident and had been training with Jim Ryan, Warren Joyce and Paul McGuinness, three amazing coaches. I was at the best I could be at that age. I trained with the first team and I felt ready, but I probably wasn’t ready and I didn’t get an opportunity to play with the first team. Ferguson told me that I wasn’t ready to be a centre back in his team, especially when he had Vidic, Ferdinand, Smalling and Evans.

"I wanted to play first team football and my agent told me that I had a few offers from Italian teams who’d been watching my games for United. I thought it was wise to try and go back to Italy, that the step would be better than playing another year in United’s reserves. I moved to Sampdoria in Genoa, where I went straight into the first team squad. They were all experienced players and I loved it. I wanted to see if I could be a top footballer.

"I joined Sampdoria and I continued to see Paul Pogba. We went to the Juventus stadium and looked for each other before the game. It was like seeing a brother.

"The Sampdoria manager Delio Rossi worked really hard with me, even though I wasn’t in the first team. He taught me so much about how to defend in Italy, which is an art. He taught me how to position my body, how to turn faster, when to challenge and how to be a better player in Italy. I used to love training under him and felt I improved a lot, even though I wasn’t playing.

The former United defender commits a crunching tackle

"Then Delio Rossi was sacked and replaced by Sinisa Mihajlovic, who’d been a great defender himself. He was a top man and saved us from relegation. Mihajlovic gave me my Sampdoria debut in a cup game. We won 4-1 and I played well. He praised me, said that I had pace and that I should learn a few tricks from some of the more experienced players.

"I had offers to move, but Mihajlovic wanted me to stay. I played 12 games under him, a good figure for a young defender. Then I got injured in pre-season, which meant they had to buy another central defender. In fact they bought two, who were a success and Sampdoria were in a European qualifying place. My chance had gone. Football can be like that, so I had to look at other options.

"By this time I was living with my girlfriend Abi, who I met in Manchester where she is from. She has followed me everywhere. By January 2015 we were living in Pescara on the Adriatic Coast in the middle of Italy. The football team were in Serie B, but I played most weeks and we reached the play-off final against Bologna. We drew home and away and won on away goals, but the league rules stated that the team who’d finished above in the league went to Serie A. Bologna went up. We were gutted.

"I stayed at Pescara and we were promoted the following season, again via the play-off. That was the highlight of my career, a first proper trophy.

"So now I’m a Serie A footballer, but Pescara are struggling and bottom of the table. It’s a tough moment in my career and we want to stay up, to save ourselves.

"Other than the current struggle, I’m happy playing in Italy and giving it my all. I’m still only 23 and still improving. Eventually, I’d like to move back to England and play there.”