Luciano Vietto happy to re-build career at Fulham after struggles at Valencia and Atletico Madrid
Argentine striker once dubbed next Sergio Aguero thriving despite not seeing family and rare visits from girlfriend
LUCIANO VIETTO is enjoying the quiet life at Fulham after struggling to live up to his noisy introduction to football.
Big things were once expected of the Argentine when he burst onto the scene as a teenager in his home country.
He was even dubbed the next Sergio Aguero but could not match the Manchester City hero’s feats at Atletico Madrid when he joined the club in 2015.
A poor season under Diego Simeone saw Vietto shipped out for similarly underwhelming loan spells at Sevilla and Valencia.
This term the 23-year-old has swapped the Spanish spotlight for the relative calm of leafy West London, where he has quietly impressed by going joint-top of the Prem assist charts.
Vietto told SunSport: “In Argentina, football is often a case of life or death.
“As a player you are often deemed to be the best or the worst, so it’s very extreme and isn’t necessarily a good thing.
“It is a very different experience over here and certainly a better situation for individual players.
“Of course it’s not the best situation for a footballer to be changing clubs every year. It can be frustrating.
“Atletico didn’t want to sell me at one point and maybe I didn’t perform quite at the level that one or two of the other clubs expected.
“The best scenario for a footballer is to stay in one place, be settled and feel comfortable.
"It hasn’t happened so far but I’m very calm about it and enjoying this new challenge.”
Rejection is something Vietto faced early in his career as he was released by Estudiantes just a year before making an impact with Racing aged 17.
He explained through a translator: “The disappointment made me want to give much more of myself and helped me grow up."
That maturity gave him an insightful perspective on Argentina’s failings at the World Cup in Russia - a tournament he was once tipped to light up.
The former Under-20 star, who idolised Javier Saviola and Pablo Aimar as a child, said: “Argentine players are all used to playing under pressure. It’s something that everyone at Argentina experiences.
“But it certainly didn’t help the team at the World Cup.
“That’s not an excuse, but certainly if the whole country had been pulling in the same direction, things would have gone differently.”
Whether the Estudiantes experience has made easier the subsequent setbacks, such as Sevilla snubbing the option to sign him permanently, is hard to tell from one so shy.
Having Simeone, the man who gave him his professional debut at Racing and who signed him for Atletico, not even discuss the switch to Fulham must have been bruising.
But then working things out for himself has become a necessity for Vietto, whose lifestyle in England so far recalls Aguero’s lonely portrayal in the City documentary All or Nothing.
He is currently living on his own with few friends nearby, his family are yet to visit while his girlfriend comes over only occasionally from Spain.
But Vietto appears to be enjoying the solitude and anonymity of our capital, happily walking his French bulldog Carlo and sightseeing in peace with Big Ben already crossed off the list.
And it seems to have helped his form given his creative impact - even if results have been rocky of late.
Ryan Sessegnon recently revealed he has put on a stone of muscle to cope with the physicality of the top flight - something which could well come in useful against Cardiff on Saturday.
Yet Vietto said: “The Premier League is certainly very physical and it’s been different for me so far.
“But I’m trying to make the most of my agility and speed to avoid those very physical clashes!
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“It’s a very important game for us, not just because it’s against Cardiff, but because it’s a game we want to win and we want to get back to winning ways.”
Sessegnon has also been tipped for superstardom just as Vietto once was.
The ex-Villarreal man added: “The most important thing for Ryan now is to enjoy it and leave the pressure to one side because the only thing that pressure can do is work against you.”
Vietto knows that better than most - but Fulham fans could see the best of him now the pressure is off.