Sandro Tonali has always seemed comfortable with the uncomfortable. Leaving Brescia for the weight of expectation at AC Milan was one thing.
Trading Serie A for Newcastle United, a different language, a different league and one of football’s most unforgiving cities, was another entirely. Yet there is something about Tonali that suggests he rather likes being dropped into the middle of the noise.
It makes Nike Toma London a fitting place to catch up with him. Surrounded by the next generation of players throwing themselves around a cage in Shoreditch, Tonali is watching a version of football that feels instinctive, chaotic and completely unfiltered. Not altogether dissimilar, perhaps, to the spaces in which he does his best work every weekend.
Because while plenty of midfielders spend games trying to avoid trouble, Tonali appears to go looking for it. Tackles, duels, second balls, crowded pockets of space — the busier the game gets, the more at home he seems. The trick, he says, is rather less dramatic than it looks: breathe, stay calm and think one move ahead.
At Toma, we caught up with the Italian midfielder to talk about embracing chaos, learning to love English football culture, the rituals that follow him into every game and why a pair of Nike T90s still takes him straight back to the players who made him fall in love with football in the first place.
We’re here today for Toma London celebrating the next gen of Nike ballers, what advice would you give to anyone starting their journey in the game?
It’s important to never stop dreaming. And dream big. I always imagined playing in the Serie A, Premier League, the best league in the world.
I think you never really stop dreaming until the end of your career. So yes, my advice for any young player is to never stop.
The game goes way beyond what happens on the grass now. What part of football culture excites you most away from the pitch?
It’s tough because you have to live and breathe football every day and every week. I like the media side and the fan culture. Playing in Italy and now in England, the fans are such a big part of the game. I’m getting more interested in the fashion side now but not as much as some of the other guys!
As someone who does their best work in the middle of the park where the game can get busy, how do you manage to thrive within the chaos?
Uh, it's tough. I just try to breathe, ha! I try every time to always think ahead to the next action. A lot of it is about staying calm and trying to anticipate what’s next.
You haven't been here for very long in London. What have you done to help yourself settle in and get familiar with your new surroundings in such a busy city?
Yeah, it's a busy city. It's a new city. It's very different to where I was before. But I found the people lovely here so far. I’m lucky as well that my wife already knew London better than me. As long as I have her and my family - everything is good.
With London being famous for its street football, and of course Nike introducing concepts such as Toma, which attributes do you think are the most important for street players to bring to an 11 a-side game?
It’s about being free, I feel. In the cage you can do the skills and moves that help in small spaces and it’s not so different in the big games. But you just have to know when the time is right to play in this way
Any game-day rituals or superstitions you can’t do without?
A few yes! Always the right boot goes on first, and then my wedding ring stays on until two minutes before we go out for kick-off. Just a few things like these, repetition is important to me I guess…
What’s your favourite Nike boot, past or present?
Has to be the T90’s. The players I loved growing up wore them and I was starting to get obsessed with football then. Every tackle and duel, seeing those boots became really magical.
Gattuso, a hero of yours, also wore T90’s. Did you pick anything else up from his game?
He was my reference for everything really. The tackles, the aggression, he was so crazy on the pitch but now I know him really well from the national team and he’s chilled now! Just a great guy all-round.
Tonali’s hunger to improve is always at the forefront. Whether he’s talking about past influences, rituals or finding freedom - a will to win is centred around his every move.