Riccardo Calafiori, a defender for the Italian national team and Arsenal, is currently competing in the Champions League. His career began at a young age as a left-back.
In 2019, he was listed as one of the top 60 talents in the world born after 2002. In 2021, UEFA included him among the 50 most promising young footballers of the year.
Calafiori’s Academic Pursuits
Alongside his sporting commitments, the young footballer, born in 2002, pursued his high school studies. He managed to graduate and enrolled in university.
Calafiori obtained his high school diploma in June 2021, announcing it on Instagram after his oral examination. He attended a school in Rome and in 2021, he enrolled in a three-year degree course in Economics and Management at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome.
He is part of the university’s “Top Athletes” programme, which supports national and international athletes in obtaining a degree by promoting a Dual Career. This programme helps athletes balance training with academic studies.
Balancing Football and Education
In an interview on Arsenal’s website, Calafiori discussed how he balanced his football career with his studies and personal life. He admitted it was tough.
“It was really hard,” he said. “One year I even dropped out of school, but I picked it up again because I had to reach the necessary grades. But it was hard, because sometimes you would go to school in the morning, and maybe there was also training, if you were called up by the first team. So sometimes you had to skip school and then catch up, which can be difficult, but I would definitely do it all again.”
Calafiori added that he was the opposite of how he behaved on the pitch when it came to school. He explained that if he wasn’t good at something in football, he would work hard to improve, but at school, he was like a talent who didn’t want to improve. “All my efforts were focused on football. My parents were always angry with me because I didn’t put enough effort into studying,” he continued.
His favourite subjects were languages.
Riccardo Calafiori, born in Rome on 19 May 2002, joined Roma’s academy at the age of eight.