Luca Marchetti has eight goals in eight games, and he would rather talk about the people who made them. “Count the assists,” he says, sitting in the players’ lounge at Fairlow the morning after the Stanground match. “Tomás, Sekou, Sam. The service has been perfect. I just have to be in the right place.”
It is a familiar line from a striker, but the numbers back it up: six of the eight have come from a first-time finish inside the six-yard box.
Learning the near post
Marchetti arrived from the Italian third tier last summer with a reputation as a poacher, and Duarte set about narrowing his game further. “He took things away rather than adding them,” Marchetti says. “Fewer touches, fewer runs to the ball. Attack the near post every time and trust the cross.”
“I scored a lot of goals from twenty yards as a boy. I score none from there now, and I am scoring more than ever. That tells you something.”
Luca Marchetti
On the hat-trick ball
The match ball from Stanground is in his kitchen, signed by the squad. He plans to give it to his father, who watched from the West Stand and “cried more than I did”.
- Eight goals in eight appearances, six from inside the six-yard box.
- Nominated for the divisional player of the month for July.
- Contracted to Meridian until 2028.
