Kouadio rises fast: from Primavera final to Mancini's call
At twenty, the Monza defender has already won a Primavera title, made his Serie A debut, and received a senior national team call-up. Now Baldini brings him into the Under 21 fold.
Eddy Kouadio has turned just a few months of career progression into a sequence of major leaps. The central defender, born in Prato in May 2006, scored the decisive goal in the Primavera title match against Parma in 2025-26, also winning the Piermario Morosini award as the tournament's best player. That triumph marked the pinnacle of his time in Fiorentina's youth academy, where he had arrived at fifteen after initial experience with local clubs.
Since that victory, Kouadio has maintained his upward trajectory. He made his Serie A debut in the Fiorentina shirt in August 2025, also collecting appearances in Conference League. His loan move to Monza in July 2026 gave him the consistent playing time he needed to develop: in the opening eight league matches he has already amassed eight appearances, becoming a reliable defensive option for the Brianza club. Interest from European sides like Brentford and Bournemouth shows how widely recognized his potential has become.
The real breakthrough came with Roberto Mancini's senior national team call-up in September, selected as one of nine debutants for Nations League fixtures. An extraordinary acknowledgment for a twenty-year-old that precedes Silvio Baldini's subsequent Under 21 invitation: Kouadio will be available for friendlies against France and Belgium in November, joining a competitive defensive group where his stock continues to rise.