Andrea Russotto

He started his career as part of the S.S. Lazio youth system.

Bellinzona and loans

In 2004, Russotto, already a regular in the national youth teams, was approached by football agency GEA World who wanted to represent the rising star. Russotto refused the pressure from GEA and, in order to get away from their continuing pressure, he moved to Switzerland, where he signed for AC Bellinzona, a team from the Italian part of Switzerland that were playing in Swiss Challenge League at the time. In 2005, newly promoted Serie A club Treviso acquired his services on loan but made him play with the Primavera side all season, where he formed a valid striking partnership with Italian youth international Robert Acquafresca. Russotto did later make his debut in Serie A that season, at the age of 17, and completed the season with four first team appearances. Famed magazine World Soccer even inserted Russotto on the list of the top 50 young players in the world, as one of only two Italians (the other being Lorenzo De Silvestri). The following season Treviso extended the loan (although they had been relegated to Serie B) and Russotto finally started to show signs of a potential explosion. He made his Italy U21 debut at the age of 18 and racked up 32 appearances and 4 goals that season. Treviso extended his loan for one more year in 2007–08 but even though he played 31 times and scoring 1 goal, Russotto failed to perform at a high level like the previous season and was used mainly as…

Russotto made his U21 team debut against Luxembourg U21, 12 December 2006, replacing Valerio Virga at half-time and notching an assist. He played once for the U23 team in a friendly match. He was then placed on reserve for the 2008 Olympics squad and was later called up to replace the injured Claudio Marchisio.