Given some of the things that have been said about Andrea Belotti in recent months, it would be easy for the striker to become big headed. “He’s worth a very high buy-out clause,” Torino owner Urbano Cairo told Radio24. “Like [Gonzalo] Higuain’s [at Napoli].”

Fast forward a few months and it was the turn of Gianluca Petrachi, Torino’s director of sport, to talk up the forward. Confirming a bid of £56million had been made by an unnamed club, it was claimed (and promptly denied) to have come from Arsenal. “He’s worth more than what the team making the offer has offered,” Petrachi told Sky Italia.

Belotti’s current release clause set at £86.5million and only applicable to foreign clubs. Given the Gunners opted not to take advantage of Higuain’s £80million release clause last summer, fans were right to question the legitimacy of the claims.

However, what remains irrefutable is the Italian’s ability. This season in Serie A Belotti has 14 goals in 18 games, with only Higuain scoring more than him in Serie A in 2016.

Yet unlike Higuain, (who began his professional career at Argentinian giant River Plate) success was not guaranteed or even expected for Belotti, and goes some way to explaining his humility. Rejected by Atalanta in his youth, he began his football career in the modest surroundings of AlbinoLeffe. “Every year he was the last player they decided to keep,” Belotti’s father remembers.

As recently as 2012 he was playing in front of less than 1,000 fans. His then teammates speak of a hard-working player willing to give his all, but not someone that they saw playing in Serie A and for Italy. “Limits, like fears, are often just illusions,” reads the tattoo on his arm, a quote from Michael Jordan.

Eager to advance his career, he joined Palermo— then in Serie B —in 2013. “I agreed to cut my wages by €400,000 because they couldn’t spend too much on someone coming from the third division,” he said. “I was using that money as an investment, a bet on myself.”

He was rewarded with promotion in his first season and then a move to Torino in 2015, both coming as the consequence of hard work. “My father told me: “If you don’t leave the pitch absolutely exhausted, it means you haven’t given it your all,’”he told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “I like to work hard.”

View photos Valutazione del cartellino: 45,3 MLN L'attaccante del Torino è il giocatore italiano più costoso secondo il Cies. (Foto Getty Images) More

Belotti’s father, a builder by trade, remains an important figure in his life. “They’re honest folk,” Torino coach Siniša Mihajlovic said of Belotti’s parents. “Andrea’s like someone from a bygone era. I read in an interview once he said his aim in life was to make enough money so his parents didn’t have to work anymore.”

To reduce the Italian’s game to industry and effort is misleading though, with his positional intelligence and movement key aspects of his game.

Just ask Ben Gibson and John Stones. The pair had to mark Belotti for England’s U21s in June 2015. A difficult task, they lost their target in the 24th minute when he found a gap between them. What came next was a deft finish past Jack Butland and Belotti wheeling away in celebration.

Yet if you were to think success is changing him you’d be wrong. That night against England he produced his now trade-mark celebration in which he places his hand against his forehead to mimic a rooster — a nod to his childhood friend Juri Gallo, (gallo meaning rooster in Italian) and the fact he used to chase the chickens on his aunt’s farm. “It’s also a way of fighting back to those who say one day I’ll get big-headed, because I never will,” he said. “A lifetime founded on the presumption of your ‘status’ creates nothing but false relationships.”

A versatile forward, Belotti can play as the leading attacker or drift out wide into the channels. Able to score goals with either foot or his head, that quality can easily be attributed to the fact he is constantly seeking improvement and studying fellow strikers. “Although he was only young, he had the footballing brain of a senior pro,” Palermo teammate Kyle Lafferty told Sky Sports. “A good listener, always willing to learn, he’s a great character and would be great in any dressing room.”

Story continues