Viareggio is a small, picturesque city on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea in northern Tuscany that is remarkable for two things: the papier-mâché floats at the carnival has been organized since 1873 and, more pertinently to this site, the youth football tournament that is held at around the same time.

The Torneo di Viareggio holds a special place in Italian football folklore. Held since 1949, it features the country’s top Primavere - literally Spring, as in the season, which is how the under 18s are called over here – as well as an ever increasing number of international sides.

What makes the Torneo di Viareggio special is the sheer number of players that have come through the tournament. Giovanni Trapattoni, Sandro Mazzola, Roberto Bettega, Bruno Conti, Paolo Rossi, Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Del Piero, Gigi Buffon and Antonio Cassano all feature in a roll call of the tournament’s most famous graduates that also reads like a list of Italian greats of the past sixty years.

It is through the authority of such a past that around the start of February, focus shifts to Viareggio and the search for the next big thing.

This year, spotting the ones with the most potential wasn’t overly difficult. Milan fielded their other teenage star in the form of Alberto Paloschi, an 18 year-old who scored Milan’s winner in his senior league debut against Siena. The ever increasing injury list is forcing Carlo Ancelotti to rely more heavily on the youngster than he would wish yet this doesn’t preclude the club from using him in a competition like the Torneo di Viareggio. Winning titles, especially one as prestigious as the Viareggio, comes above everything else.

It is the same reasoning that led to Inter into using their own prodigy, Mario Balotelli. Two goals on his debut in the Coppa Italia against Reggina, another brace in the following round’s victory against Juventus, this kid truly is something special.

As is his story. Born to Ghanaian parents in Palermo, at age two he was adopted by a couple in Brescia. His talent for football immediately shone through so much that he was in the Lumezzano first team in the C1 (Division One) by the time he was fifteen. Such was the development that the Italian football association had to give him special consent to play.

This progress brought him to the notice of big clubs, and he even held a trial with Barcelona. Eventually he opted for Inter and despite the club’s reticence to bring through young players; Balotelli - who never celebrates when he scores (although an exception was made against Juventus) - has quickly forced himself into Roberto Mancini’s reckoning so much that an appearance against Liverpool cannot be ruled out.

Seven goals in six games at the Viareggio – including two in the replayed final where he also twice hit the post – easily mark him out as the tournament’s best player as well as another name that will continue to embellish Viareggio’s reputation.