Every year budding footballers are dubbed the 'next Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo' but one star remains the original wonderkid.
Former Juventus midfielder Matteo Brighi still boasts the second-highest FIFA (NKA FC) rating of all time with a whopping 97 score.
The Italian was crowned by EA Sports as the best in the world following the release of FIFA 03 in October 2002 – two months after a teenage CR7 made his professional debut with Sporting Lisbon.
Ironically, it is only Ronaldo's Brazilian namesake who has ever earned a higher overall than Brighi on any edition of the franchise's history.
The-then-21-year-old beat out FIFA 03 cover stars Thierry Henry, Roberto Carlos and Ryan Giggs to be handed the prestigious honour.
To put that into further context, Messi and Ronaldo, who have won a combined 13 Ballons d'Or between them, have never been higher than a 94 on any individual EA entry.
In defence of Brighi, the youngster had just been bestowed the Serie A Young Footballer of the Year award – following in the footsteps of Francesco Totti and Alessandro Nesta.
However, FIFA bigwigs had been overzealous in investing in the potential of a player tipped to be the next big thing.
Just two years prior Brighi was starring in Italy’s now-defunct fourth tier, formerly known as Serie C2, then Lega Pro Seconda Divisione.
The midfielder had come through the ranks of boyhood club Rimini where he caught the eye of now-Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti.
Ancelotti took the reigns at Juventus in February 1999 and hoped to make Brighi among his first signings for the club that summer as part of a drive to stockpile the best young talent in Europe.
The teenager surprised the ex-Chelsea gaffer by opting to stay at Rimini for a further season to finish his diploma in accounting.
“I didn’t feel like coming immediately, I wasn’t ready yet,” said Brighi in 2000. “It was better to wait, and have a little more experience.”
Brighi arrived instead a year into Ancelotti's Juve reign having scored six goals in 34 games as Rimini ultimately lost in the playoffs.
The Bianconeri hierarchy waxed lyrical about their new prodigy, with controversial ex-club executive Luciano Moggi comparing him to Real Madrid legend Fernando Redondo – who had just won UEFA Club Footballer of the Year.
Ancelotti similarly was also struck by Brighi's talents and even admitted his qualities were akin to his own as a player.
La Repubblica quoted him saying: "In some ways he resembles me, he's a simple, straightforward player. He should just be less shy."
That last piece of advice from Ancelotti proved to be a warning in hindsight, as it proved to be a theme of Brighi's career.
David Trezeguet
Enzo Maresca
Edwin van der Sar
Gianluca Zambrotta
Matteo Brighi
Brighi did little to quell the doubts over his timid nature after expressing his doubts that he would be able to make the grade.
He said: “It’s early to make judgments, I don’t even know if I’m able to stay at these levels. I’m here to learn, in a couple of months we will decide if I can stay in the first team.”
Juventus already had Zinedine Zidane, Antonio Conte and Edgar Davids as midfield options at the time of Brighi's arrival in Turin.
At age 19, he featured just 12 times during the 2000-01 campaign and was largely kept out of the spotlight by Ancelotti.
Brighi was loaned out to Bologna the following year which is where he showed the form that made EA Sports sit up and take notice.
He made 32 outings as Rossoblu finished an impressive seventh, where he was rewarded with a spot alongside Andrea Pirlo in midfield as Italy’s Under-21s reached the semi-finals of the European Championships.
En route to the final four, Brighi and co. beat an England side captained by David Dunn that also included Peter Crouch, Jermaine Defoe, Jermaine Jenas, Bobby Zamora, Scott Parker, and Gareth Barry in the group stage.
Three months later that same summer Brighi was handed his senior international debut and by then, EA had seen enough.
Juventus weren't convinced that his future was at the Stadio delle Alpi and he was farmed out to Parma and then Brescia.
Brighi eventually joined Roma in 2004 in a package deal that saw Juventus land Emerson but he had to wait three years for his debut.
The former starlet spent three years on loan with Chievo Verona before finally wearing Giallorossi colours upon his return in 2007.
During this time, EA Sports had dropped his overall rating in FIFA 05 to 81, but still with a potential of 98 in case things started to click.
But a year later he was relegated to a 79 rating – a hefty 18 ratings lower than his 97 peak – and his rapid downward progression had led to a video-game revamp in how the Canadian publishers scored footballers each season.
The end of Brighi's transfer merry-go-round did at least allow him to spark a brief career revival at Roma.
He ended his exile from the Italy national team, with legendary Azzurri manager Marcello Lippi bemoaning the enormous expectation he was put under in curtailing his rise.
“From the human point of view he is a splendid boy, and from the technical point of view he is one of those diligent midfielders that every trainer would want to have," Lippi said.
"To my warning, at the beginning of his career, he was praised so excessively that too many expectations were created around him.”
In total, Brighi made 142 appearances for Roma – the most for any one club – before becoming a journeyman for his remaining playing days.
He was linked with transfers to Fulham and Celtic, but instead turned out for Atalanta, Torino, Sassuolo, Perugia and Empoli, before quietly hanging up his boots with the latter in 2019.
“I’m not the type for announcements and goodbyes," the four-cap Italy international told Roma's club website the following year.
"I’ve started a new journey which is still in football and that suits me."
Brighi oversees his own football academy back in Rimini, where he has the chance to nurture the next big thing coming through.
It seems he has his own views on why he never hit the heights expected of him, telling Sky Italia in 2013: "I like to work, not talk.
"Other players talk and sell themselves, certainly better than I do. I don’t blame them for it. It’s just not me."
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