Until Juventus plucked him from relative obscurity last year, the name Federico Gatti meant very little in the upper echelons of Italian football.
Fast forward and the former bricklayer, window fitter and supermarket staff member is now the defender a revolutionising Juventus can build around.
Determination is one word that continues to follow Gatti around.
While others were nurtured through academy set-ups, he worked shifts in a variety of jobs before training and playing for amateur teams in the evenings.
'I had lots of jobs, I will never forget that past,' he explained last year.
'In fact it gives me strength during difficult moments to keep going. I did a bit of everything. I worked in supermarkets, a window-fitter, a builder. Fortunately, things went well with football in the end.'
His fairytale rise is akin to something written by the novelist Carlo Collodi, one that should serve as an inspiration to players right across Italy's football pyramid.
Gatti was born in Rivoli, a province of Turin, on June 24, 1998, and while he spent a period as an attacking midfielder in Torino's academy, it was in amateur football he really cut his teeth.
His father was unemployed and so he needed to be the income provider, taking on a host of jobs to pay bills while also refusing to give up on his dream to make it as a footballer.
Gazzetta dello Sport detailed how Gatti, a midfielder while he was growing up, had posters of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard on his wall as a youngster.
Those were players over in England that he idolised and aspired to emulate.
But his true calling, coaches would quickly realise, was in defence and given he was the tallest player while on loan at Pavarolo in 2017-18, he was pushed back into a new role where he has since thrived.
Just three years ago Gatti contested Serie D with Verbania after having previously played among the non-professionals in Promozione and Eccellenza, earning salary from his job as a bricklayer.
In 2020 he turned professional, signing for Serie C side Pro Patria for around £88,000 and he would begin to lay the foundations for a rapid two-year ascendancy to Juventus and European football.
Gatti's footballing life has been dedicated to the dreams of his grandfather, who died in December 2022 and to whom he dedicated his goal against Sporting Lisbon on Thursday night.
His grandad always wanted to see him play in Serie A but never had the chance to do so and that motivation is a real driver for the 24-year-old.
It was when he was thrust into the national team set-up in a real roll of the dice - he had not played a single minute in Serie A when he was called up - against England that his name began to attract interest.
Tasked with defending Harry Kane, Gatti stood up to the challenge and it was in that moment that Juventus understood they had bought a really reliable player from Frosinone. He cost around £8.8million and today his value has already tripled.
After many months of serving an apprenticeship of sorts behind Leonardo Bonucci, Gatti has now become a regular at Juventus and dreams of becoming the team's future captain.
Born in 1998, he is young but no longer very young and his career can mirror that of Moreno Torricelli, who went from being a carpenter to full-back for then-European champion Juventus.
Against Sporting Lisbon Gatti was man of the match: the best in defence and also the most excited and thrilled in celebrating his first goal for Juventus.
His current salary is less than €400,000 (£353,000) a year and he is Juventus' lowest paid player - but that seems inevitable that it will sky rocket with the trajectory he is on now.
When he arrived in Turin the hierarchy was clear: he was to be the fourth-choice defender.
But today he is the immovable object of the three-man defence having overtaken Daniele Rugani, found the right chemistry with Gleison Bremer and finally relegated Bonucci on the bench.
His future is full of dreams and after the goal against Sporting Lisbon nobody is willing to crush them. His fairytale run to this point is a story for the ages but for Juventus there are more chapters to write.