Despite his young age (20 years old) Federico Macheda has already had quite an impact on English football. In his first full team appearance for Manchester United Macheda scored a superb winner against Aston Villa and went on to make some important performance in the run in to United’s league winning campaign in the 2008-2009 season, as well as winning the United academy player of year award.
Despite this promising start the following two years proved less fruitful and Macheda was moved on loan to Samporia and more recently Queens Park Rangers. With little impact during his loan spells it seems likely that Macheda may not survive the summer exodus from old Trafford this summer. Many believe that Sir Alex Ferguson’s main transfer target, Argentinean international midfielder Nicolas Gaitan is likely to move from Benfica for an estimated £20 million, with Macheda moving permanently to the Portuguese side as part of the deal.
Macheda who is one game off 50 appearances for the United, will no doubt feel some unfinished business with English football, with no real, decent chance to prove himself and at such a young age is seems strange that he would be cast aside so early. This is of course not the first time this has happened. Alex Ferguson has already seen highly rated Giuseppe Rossi slip through his fingers after he was let go without a proper chance to establish himself. With age on his side the Italian Under-21 star has plenty of time left on his career and If the transfer of Gaitan goes through and Macheda leaves, only time will tell to see if he is able to live up to his potential and become one of the small number of players to prove Alex Ferguson wrong.