For Graziano Pellè, there have been many potential pitfalls. He grew up in Monteroni di Lecce in the heel of Italy, where young boys can have their heads turned the wrong way and never find a way back. Less seriously, he could easily have chosen ballroom dancing as his profession after becoming national under-12s champion in partnership with his sister.

Had he not booked a holiday to Ibiza, where by chance he met a friend of Ronald Koeman’s son, leading to a move to Feyenoord, his promising yet fluctuating career might never have taken off.

This season he has scored six Premier League goals for the surprise high-fliers Southampton, was named the league’s player of the month for September and made his debut for Italy. It is fair to say Pellè has been the revelation of the season so far. On Sunday he and his team face their toughest test yet of a hitherto superb season when the league champions, Manchester City, come to St Mary’s.

All of it could have been so different, though. The entire family Pellè lived together in a concrete villa in Monteroni built by Graziano’s grandfather, Pipe. Graziano played football in the house with his nephew Alessandro, driving his mother, Doriana, crazy, but it was his grandfather who was his footballing influence. “Pipe drove me to and from the training. He always had the same advice: ‘Graziano, if you don’t shoot, you won’t score’,” Pellè says. Pipe died six years ago, according to the striker, from a broken heart following the death of his wife. “I’m so sorry he can’t see my current success,” his grandson says.

Pellè has his family to thank for everything. In his district boys can easily choose a different path, one that leads to crime, but he did not care about materialistic things. A new scooter? He would rather sit next to his grandfather in the car. He also knew his father, Roberto, would display a true Italian temper if his son stayed too long at the wrong place, which could easily be at an innocent piazza playing calcetto (five-a-side) just like every other Italian kid.

The Pellès were dancers, not fighters. The family used to go dancing every Saturday night. Graziano and his sister were strongly inspired by their mother and they became junior ballroom champions. “I think it was my advantage that I was tall. I could spin more than the other guys,” he says. It helped him with his other hobby: football. “Balance, discipline, co-ordination; I think I move easy for a tall striker. But it was too hard to combine and the changing from normal shoes to high heels to football boots was killing me, let alone all the training.”

His dedication in the youth teams of his home-town club Lecce paid off with his senior debut in January 2004 but it took him two years to find the net. He was by then out on loan at Crotone in Serie B. “I had difficulties keeping my focus. I was thinking too much when I was in front of the goal. In Italy only goals count. Without it you’ll never get a good grade in the paper.”

The tall target man made it to the Italy youth squads, though, and during the European Under-21 Championship in 2007, which was held in Holland, he caught the attention of Louis van Gaal. The Manchester United manager demanded he was bought by AZ Alkmaar, where he was building what would prove a championship-winning team.

Pellè is a complex character. In many ways you sense he was born in the wrong decade. He loves tradition, ancient fairy tales and classic pictures. At Feyenoord’s De Kuip stadium, I saw him nearly kiss an old photograph of one of the Dutch club’s icons, Coen Moulijn. He absorbed the stories about the club legends of Feyenoord. You could tell by his 60s haircut, which a lot of young boys in Rotterdam still sport today, and eclectic wardrobe.

“Italians in particular were known for being people with charm, style and class,” Pellè told me with eyes that were as bright as his hair. “There was a lot of respect, especially for women. The man would always keep the door open for her in a restaurant. He would look in the eyes of his date, not on his phone. I wish those days would come back. Now everybody looks at dumb reality soaps or practically lives on social media.”

Cult hero: Graziano Pellè was captain of his former club, Feyenoord. Photograph: Olaf Kraak/AFP/Getty Images

Unabashedly, completely without embarrassment, he reveals how he celebrates the monthly anniversary of his relationship with his girlfriend, Viktoria. After the first month he bought her a hundred roses, after two months he bought her a cake with their picture on it and after nine months a piece of fruit with a chocolate No9 on top of it. “I never forget these kind of things,” he says.

With a smile he recalls when Viktoria texted him one morning complaining he had forgot about their eight-months anniversary and did not care about her any more. The striker replied: ‘Clearly you are still in bed’. In the bathroom mirror he had written a declaration of his love … with her lipstick. On Valentine’s Day he took her out to the restaurant of Amsterdam’s fancy Amstel Hotel but sent a friend to get nuggets from McDonalds and let the cook put it on her plate alongside a rose because it was her favourite dish.

Everything changed for Pellè in Holland, but during his first spell he had trouble making his mark. He started his first season late at AZ because he had to play in the Espoirs tournament for young players in Toulon and AZ were already on a roll. Pellè was used as a supersub and his dramatic expressions and celebrations irked some influential television pundits. Van Gaal, however, always kept faith.

After four years, when he finally flourished, he moved to Parma, because AZ had to get rid of some high-paid players. He signed a five-year contract with the Italian club but after only half a season went on loan to Sampdoria. “There wasn’t a manager in Italy that really believed in him,” says Pellè’s agent Romualdo Corvino. “In Italy they don’t really invest in players without experience. In Holland they care more about how you develop and play. They give strikers more confidence and more chances. Graziano needs that.”

When he returned to Holland in 2012 his popularity went to another level after he scored the equaliser for Feyenoord against their rivals Ajax, using all his dancing and football skills. Pellè took his shirt off, screamed and flexed his muscles like a bodybuilder. The picture was on the front of every newspaper.

Feyenoord was a turning point that would never have taken place if Pellè had not met a friend of Koeman’s son who was taking a holiday at the same resort in Ibiza. The talkative Italian spoke highly about Dutch football and Koeman. The coach and the striker got in touch and their mutual desire to win at all costs culminated in Pellè moving back to Holland and even becoming captain at De Kuip.

Pellè’s father, whose playing career never rose higher than Serie C, claims, smiling, that his son’s success is all down to him. “My father is very superstitious,” Pellè told the Dutch football writer Renate Verhoofstad. “If he watches a match at home and my mother goes to the toilet and the opponent scores she’s not allowed to go to the toilet again during the match. Once I took home two romper suits for my nephews with Feyenoord on them. Next week I scored twice and now my nephews are obliged to wear the rompers every game.”

Pellè grew larger than life in Rotterdam, hosting Feyenoord’s ladies day and acting in a commercial for the television channel Eredivisie Live. “Feyenoord asked me to do this, that’s why I did it. I could do much more ads, but by nature I’m a shy guy,” Pellè says.

The shy guy can also have a temper. At Feyenoord’s training ground he was famous for being “over-emotional” if team-mates did not put in enough effort (“my Italian 10 minutes” he calls these flashes of temper). He also told them not to mopeabout for too long when things did not go their way. “I always say to them: don’t be sad, be mad!”

And Pellè went mad when the title was out of reach last season. He kicked at a dugout and some TV cameras after a late goal from FC Twente and told an interviewer that he had “an Ajax-face”. He was suspended for four matches and stripped of the captaincy. Still the Feyenoord fans loved him but a divorce was inevitable. When Koeman went to Southampton it was logical Pellè would follow him to England. He was not afraid of failing in the Premier League while hoping to fulfil his grandfather’s biggest wish, to play for the Azzurri.

The call came from Antonio Conte in October and Pellè scored the winner against Malta. Life is good for Pellé and could become even better with a match-winning performance against City. As Pellé says, paraphrasing a famous writer: “I live my life not to lose something but to win something.”