The pre-game buzz had this as a showdown between two of world football’s most intriguing young No 10s, Como’s Nico Paz v Juventus’s Kenan Yildiz. A 21-year-old Argentina international whose dazzling debut campaign in Serie A persuaded Tottenham to make an unsuccessful €70m bid to buy him in the summer, taking on the 20-year-old trequartista with 25 appearances already for Turkey’s national team.
Fabio Capello could not pick between them, ranking Paz and Yildiz alongside Roma’s Matías Soulé as the finest “fantasisti” – artistic playmakers – in Serie A today. The newspaper Il Giornale played on the players’ shirt number and young age as they billed it as a battle “da ‘10’ (e lode)”. In the Italian academic system, a grade of 110 e lode (with honours) is the highest one can achieve.
