After a difficult childhood (“I was dealing drugs at 8”) and a promising start to his career, the playmaker, who has another year left on his contract, is now on the sidelines, even with Fabregas. That red card against Milan was (also) fatal.

This time he’s not in Marbella on retreat with his teammates. Only six months have passed, but those happy times seem so far away, when Dele Alli, after earning Fabregas’ trust, returned to doing what he had always fought for: playing soccer. It was last January when the Englishman signed an 18-month contract with an option to renew for another 12 and left with the team for Andalusia to recharge his muscles and mind during the Christmas break. It was a new opportunity in a young and ambitious team, led by a capable coach who would surely recognize his qualities, as well as his talent. He would have had it, until that fateful March 10…

San Siro welcomes Como, returning to the temple of soccer after twenty-three long years. Fabregas, no longer a surprise, bites hard as usual with Paz, Caqueret, and Da Cunha, forwards disguised as midfielders who rage on the lawn of the Diavolo in its saddest version in memory. The Biancoblù deservedly took the lead through Da Cunha and were unfortunately denied a second goal, again by the Frenchman, who was caught offside by a fingernail. Milan shook themselves up, Pulisic came on and equalized, and Reijnders put them ahead. With 10 minutes to go, Dele Alli got up from the bench: his Serie A debut and return to the pitch after what seemed like a lifetime. It was February 26, 2023, when the former Tottenham star played his last official match in Turkey with Besiktas.

The English trio—  Dele is in good shape despite his long layoff. After all, he is only 28 years old… even if it seems like a century has passed since he was filling the headlines and tabloid headlines. Positioned between the lines, he looks for the through ball for the strikers or even personal glory. He is so fired up and eager to prove that he is not a washed-up player that he even throws himself into defense. Like in the first minute of stoppage time, when he fouled his compatriot Loftus-Cheek to stop one of his deadly runs. Marchetti blew his whistle for the foul and booked Alli, but play did not resume as VAR was checking for a possible change of card. And so it is, with Kyle Walker, Dele’s long-time teammate at Tottenham, desperately seeking the referee’s leniency, but to no avail: he is sent off nine minutes after returning to the field, where he had been absent for 743 days.
Suburbia—  It’s like being hit by a truck, but Dele Alli is tough. He comes from a difficult background, like those seen in British films set in identical suburbs with red brick houses. He recounted this himself in an interview that has become legendary: “When I was six, I was molested by a friend of my mother’s who was often at our house. My mother was an alcoholic. I was sent to Nigeria, then sent back. At seven, I started smoking, at eight, dealing drugs. They said they wouldn’t stop a kid on a bike, so I rode around with a soccer ball and drugs hidden under the seat. At 11, I was dangled from a bridge by a neighbor who wanted to kill me. Then, at 12, I was adopted.”
The peak—  A first rebirth thanks to soccer. Dele knows his stuff and moves quickly with the ball at his feet, from the streets of Milton Keynes to the youth teams of the town of Buckinghamshire. Bayern Munich and Liverpool quickly spot him, but Tottenham is quicker off the mark, paying €6 million to Pochettino, who turns him into a top-class attacking midfielder. With Son and Eriksen behind Kane, he was unstoppable: “The sky’s the limit for him,” said Graeme Souness. “The best English midfielder since Gascoigne,” ventured Sir Alex Ferguson.

The fall—  It takes two pages of Transfermarkt to list all of Dele Alli’s injuries. The most serious was in March 2023: a muscle tear in his groin that kept him out for 348 days, not without going under the knife. The latest is recent news, with Fabregas giving him a dressing down after his sending off against Milan. He didn’t give up and continued to train even though he couldn’t play, thanks to another physical setback. Como finished the season comfortably, and Dele was probably the last thing on their minds. Then the recent transfer window did the rest, with the arrival of young talents such as Baturina and Paz, who did not leave, and Da Cunha and Caqueret moving up the pecking order. Dele now trains with Como’s large group of players who are not in the squad. He is wondering whether the time has really come to call it a day.