Five facts on Graziano Pelle

Strictly Come Dancing.....

Not necessarily the thing one would own up to in the macho world of football but Pelle was a national Under-12 champion dancer with his sister. He says he had to choose between ballroom dancing and football which didn't present too much of a quandary. "My sister wanted to dance and so after a day of football, I'd change and even have to put heels on because my sister was taller than me at the time! I was pretty good because I was physically strong and then I won champion for all kinds of disciplines," he revealed in his entertaining book 'Pelle talks: 1000 questions and more'. While he doesn't regret forsaking the dancing career for football he admits it served him well on the pitch. "It helped me with football because it gave me a lot of co-ordination and rhythm," he said.

Family values

A romantic at heart -- he once sent his Hungarian model girlfriend who he met through Facebook 100 roses -- his values in life were set in stone by a solid family background. All the Pelle's from grandfather Pipe to his parents, father Roberto, also a footballer but never at his son's level, and mum Doriana, and their children lived together in the same house built by the patriarch of the family in Monteroni in the heel of Italy. Pelle's biggest regret is his beloved grandpa didn't live to see him succeed. "Pipe drove me to and from the training. He always had the same advice: 'Graziano, if you don't shoot, you won't score',” Pelle told The Guardian in 2014. Pipe died in 2008 from a broken heart following the death of his wife. "I'm so sorry he can't see my current success," said Pelle.

Koeman the spark that lit the fuse

Pelle's first spell in the Netherlands hadn't gone swimmingly well and not much better when he returned to Italy. However, a chance meeting with a friend of the son of Ronald Koeman in the unlikely setting of a beach in party island Ibiza set him on the track that was to lead to his career turning in the right direction. "They were chatting to each other on the phone," Pelle told The Daily Telegraph in October 2015. "I said to say 'hi to Ronald Koeman and ask him to bring me to Feyenoord'. It was just a saying but in the end it went like that. A good vacation." Koeman duly did just that and signed him for Dutch giants Feyenoord. He rose to be captain, scoring 55 goals in 66 appearances, before eventually following his mentor to Southampton in 2014 and netted 30 times for them in two productive campaigns.

Mynah regrets

Pelle's favourite pet was neither a dog nor a cat or even a canary but a mynah bird called Calimero. Thus he was reduced to tears on learning dad Roberto had not buried it when it died aged 19 but instead put it in a dustbin. "That bird was like a brother to me. My heart broke and I had to cry again," revealed Pelle in his book.

Wilde at heart

Footballers perhaps unfairly aren't regarded as book worms let alone readers of the literary classics. Pelle again goes against the clichéed image as he is a devotee of the flamboyant Irish literary giant Oscar Wilde he claims in the book 'Pelle talks'. Certainly some of his interviews could be termed 'The Importance of Being Earnest'.