The 16-year-old, who has similar qualities to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, lived up to the hype with two goals against Lazio to become the league’s youngest scorer

Marco Pellegri decided to go on living. Genoa’s team administrator had warned us that he might not, telling reporters: “The day [my son] Pietro steps out at Marassi wearing a Genoa shirt I can go ahead and die, because it will mean that I have seen everything.”

Nope, not even close. Pietro Pellegri would make his home debut in April, a three-minute cameo at the end of a defeat to Chievo. It was a beautiful moment: father and son stood side by side on the touchline at Marassi as the board went up announcing the latter’s introduction from the bench.

They had worked together to make it possible. A lifelong fan of the Grifone, Marco shared his passion with Pietro from the start. The younger Pellegri likes to joke that he “grew up on bread and Genoa”. But at 16 years old he knew even then he still had more growing to do. And plenty more to show his dad yet.

His first appearance for Genoa’s senior team had arrived months earlier, away at Torino in December 2016. At 15 years and 280 days, Pellegri was the joint-youngest player ever to feature in Serie A. It was on the final day of the season, though, that he truly captured the nation’s attention, threatening to ruin Francesco Totti’s retirement party with a first senior goal.

As the new season rolled around, it was clear further opportunities lay ahead for Pellegri. Genoa had signed Gianluca Lapadula to lead their attack, but with Giovanni Simeone departing there was still a distinct lack of depth. This truth was quickly exposed after the new arrival picked up an injury in the club’s third game. With Lazio coming to Marassi on Sunday night, Ivan Juric attempted to redesign his team into a strikerless formation – deploying Adel Taarabt as a false nine. It was an experiment that lasted only 33 minutes.

Already a goal down, and playing poorly enough to believe another would soon follow, Genoa needed a change. Juric sent Pellegri into the fray. You could hardly say this substitution turned the tide of the match, as Lazio continued to dominate. But it certainly made things a lot more interesting.

In the 57th minute Pellegri raced into the box, seeking to get on the end of Taarabt’s through-ball. Instead he wound up profiting from some calamitous defending. Stefan De Vrij slid in to intercept but the ball pinged up from his boot on to the chest of team-mate Stefan Radu and then back into Pellegri’s path. Radu, tracking back desperately, then deflected the striker’s shot beyond Thomas Strakosha in goal.

If that was a fortuitous first at the Marassi for Pellegri, then better was soon to follow. Lazio retook the lead through Ciro Immobile, only for the teenager to equalise a second time. Ervin Zukanovic’s cross from a deep position on the left was well placed, but not every player would have had the instincts, acceleration and decisiveness to sprint in behind De Vrij and slide home.

That was still not enough to save Genoa from themselves. With a little less than 10 minutes to go, Santiago Gentiletti gave possession away cheaply in the middle of the park, allowing Immobile to race through and chip home Lazio’s third. The Italy striker has made quite some start to the season. This was his sixth goal in eight days.

Pellegri still has a way to go to match that output. There are many, though, who believe he can get there yet. Already 6ft 3in tall and still growing, he names Zlatan Ibrahimovic as his idol, and there are surface-level similarities. Both are deceptively technical players, comfortable with their backs to goal as well as attacking the penalty box.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pietro Pellegri scores against Lazio but it wasn’t enough in a 3-2 defeat. Photograph: Simone Arveda/EPA

Nobody is suggesting Pellegri is in Ibrahimovic’s class yet, but he was sought by the Swede’s current employers. Manchester United were reported to have made an approach to sign Pellegri in 2015 after seeing him lead Genoa to the final of a youth tournament the English club hosted. Even then, he was competing with kids from above his age group. United are said to have offered Pellegri’s father a well-paid job in England to make the move possible. Marco rejected. How could he ever agree to such a move without seeing his son play at the Marassi at least once?

The big clubs, though, have not relented. Both Inter and Juventus made enquiries over the summer, and Milan now appear to be in pole position to sign him this January. Should we worry about this young talent getting ahead of himself, made into a star before he has truly even begun? Genoa’s president, Enrico Preziosi, was already billing Pellegri in January as the “next Messi”. Against such predictable and preposterous hyperbole, perhaps we can trust in the player’s own humility. “I’m realising a dream right now,” Pellegri said at full-time. “But I just go to training, work hard and keep my mouth shut.”

The one moment that seemed to catch him out was being shown footage of his father in the dugout during the game. Marco Pellegri was wiping a tear from his eye, having just watched his son become the youngest player to score two goals in a Serie A match. Perhaps he hadn’t seen everything quite yet, after all.

Talking points

• After collecting a single point between them in the midweek Champions League round, last season’s top three won their matches this weekend by a combined 12-1 scoreline. The disparity has not gone unnoticed in Italy, where more than one Monday morning columnist has posed the question of why Juventus, Napoli and Roma only “look big in our own back garden”. Given that we’ve only had one round of group stage games so far, and given that the Bianconeri were in the final last year, it’s probably a little premature to get deep into that question. But it does feel as if the disparity between Serie A’s strongest clubs and the weakest is especially wide just now. We are four games into the season and Napoli already have a +13 goal difference, Juventus a +10 and Inter a +9.

• Those three are the only teams left with a perfect record, by the way, after Sampdoria drew away to Torino. This was not a weekend short on special goals but I did enjoy Daniele Baselli’s across-the-box finish for the Granata’s first.

• Speaking of goals, Paulo Dybala now has eight on his own in four league games. Oh, and he only played the last 36 minutes of one of those. His hat-trick against Sassuolo was wonderful from top to bottom but for me the first was the pick of the bunch: just casually swiped across his body first-time from the edge of the D.

• There was a hat-trick for Dries Mertens, too, in Napoli’s 6-0 rout of Benevento. Admittedly, two of his came from the penalty spot – and if Maurizio Sarri had got his way then the second of those might have been taken by Marek Hamsik, a man who has looked in need of a confidence boost during the early part of the season. “I was wrong, though,” Sarri said afterwards. “I thought Hamsik was only one goal shy of Maradona’s record [of goals scored for the club]. They told me it’s still two or three, so it was right to feed the animal, Mertens, who always wants to score.”

• One man denied a hat-trick this weekend, however, was Nikola Kalinic – who hit the post early, scored twice and then had a third goal wiped out by VAR in Milan’s 2-1 win over Udinese. He was ruled to have been offside for the latter, although the decision was so tight that it was surprising to see it overturned even with the help of multiple replays. Either way, it was positive for Milan to have him off the mark. André Silva had already grabbed a hat-trick in midweek against Austria Vienna, with the Rossoneri in both cases playing out of a 3-5-2. Any change that allows for a little less Fabio Borini is probably a good thing.

• Last goal not to be missed from the weekend: João Pedro against Spal.

Results: Crotone 0-2 Inter, Fiorentina 2-1 Bologna, Roma 3-0 Verona, Sassuolo 1-3 Juventus, Milan 2-1 Udinese, Napoli 6-0 Benevento, Spal 0-2 Cagliari, Torino 2-2 Sampdoria, Chievo 1-1 Atalanta, Genoa 2-3 Lazio.