Raffaele De Vita: Achieving Dreams Part One

Becoming a professional footballer is a challenge in itself but achieving a childhood dream is something that requires hard work, belief and determination.

Starting out as a youth player in his home city of Rome, Raffaele grew up idolising Paolo Di Canio and supporting Lazio before beginning his dream of becoming a professional football player when he signed for Blackburn Rovers in July 2003 at just 16 years old.

Moving abroad at such a young age is never easy and it took him some time to adjust to the new lifestyle he was facing in Lancashire.

“It was completely different, obviously the physicality of the game was a different level not just watching the first team but the youth teams as well.”

“In Italy the training was a bit more tactical and relaxed, you don’t really kick each other in games but in England every training session is flat out and the intensity is very high so I kind of struggled to get used to that at the start because I was playing against kids that were my age but a lot stronger physically.”

After spending three years at Livingston with the club back in the First Division, Raffaele moved south to join Swindon Town in the summer of 2011, signing a 2 year deal with the club.

He believed it was too good an opportunity to turn down and his boyhood dream was achieved when his footballing idol, Paulo Di Canio was appointed manager shortly after his arrival at the club.

Making his debut under Di Canio on the 6th August 2011 in his first competitive match in charge, Swindon ran out 3-0 winners against Crewe Alexandra. Raffaele scored his first goal for the club towards the end of the month in a 1-0 victory against Championship side Bristol City and his first league goal for the club came a month later in a 4-0 win over Barnet. A major highlight of De Vita’s career came under Di Canio when he helped them achieve promotion to League One playing at the iconic Wembley stadium and then earning a 4thplace finish the following season.

Playing in the second leg of the semi-final against Brentford looking for promotion to the championship, ‘The Robins’ narrowly fell at the final hurdle losing 5-4 on penalties after the tie finished 4-4 on aggregate.

“When I joined, they hadn’t even appointed Di Canio, so it was actually by chance that he ended up being my manager but obviously when I found out he was appointed I just couldn’t believe it.”

“It was his first job in English Football as a manager and with so many clubs in England, I end up at the one where he is the manager. It was surreal the whole time because he was my hero and I grew up watching his clips, his goals and stuff, so even at the end of the 2 years when he was talking to the lads or doing team talks it was still incredible. I had to pinch myself a few times and I could not believe it was really happening. We got promotion, we went to Wembley and unfortunately, we missed out on promotion to the championship by getting knocked out on penalties.”