“He made himself known to the rest of the world thanks to the South American Under-20 championship (in 2017),” Udinese’s chief scout Andrea Carnevale tells The Athletic. But the Pozzo recruitment network was ahead of the curve in their pursuit of Francisco Sierralta.
“Udinese scouting is always very attentive to all the events of all the championships and we are always active in South America too. We followed him a lot with our observers and we managed to anticipate the competition of many clubs.”
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It meant as a posse of scouts at Estadio Olimpico de Riobamba in Ecuador watched Sierralta’s impressive performance for Chile against Brazil on January 20, 2017, the hard recruiting yards had already been done. “Sierralta arrived in Italy in the summer of 2017 but he is a player who we had already identified, followed and selected in the youth teams of his club a few years earlier,” Carnevale explains. “Then (we) left him in Chile to mature.
“The thing that struck me most was his great tactical intelligence and his leadership in commanding the defensive line. In that edition of the prestigious event he was made the captain of his national team and made a really good impression on me.”
That year the tournament boasted a collection of Pozzo acquisitions. Sierralta marked Richarlison that day ahead of the Brazilian’s move to Watford in the summer. Sierralta also faced Colombia’s Cucho Hernandez in the group stage. Hernandez joined Granada, then owned by the Pozzos, six months later, where he met up with Pervis Estupinan (now at Villarreal) who featured for Venezuela in the other group at the under-20 championship.
Chile didn’t make it to the next phase of the tournament but Sierralta, then 19, helped them to the second-best defence in the group (just four goals conceded). At 6ft 4in he stood out owing to his stature but also the football he played. He was already featuring in the Chilean Premier Division for Palestino after joining on loan for the 2016-17 season.
“He was a player who has several qualities: strong, a good aerial game and he likes to play his first pass forward and on the floor,” Agustin Farias, a team-mate of Sierralta at Palestino, tells The Athletic. “He had come with the option of playing central and when he had to play he always responded well, despite his age, and also in some games he did it as a right-winger.
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“There was a game we played with Flamengo in the quarter-final of the South American Cup and the coach decides to put him on that side. It was not an easy game to play, we had a rival with a lot of experience and yet he responded in a good way.”
Sierralta had always played as a striker but worked his way back to defence by the time he became a teenager. He never lost that attacking instinct, though: his first professional goal came in October 2016 in a 3-2 defeat against O’Higgins when he followed up a Leonardo Valencia free-kick more like an attacker than a defender. “At his young age it is difficult to achieve and have the humility to listen in order to improve because generally at that age people do not,” says Farias. “He (Francisco) knew how to capture the information being given to him in a good way, especially giving importance to what the coach was telling him.”
Sierralta was born in Las Condes, a middle-class suburb on the outskirts of Santiago. He was a bright student — maths was a speciality —but his footballing education came at Universidad Catolica (UC) after he joined their academy aged eight.
“Our club has always been connected to the development of players, it’s in our mission,” Chile international Milovan Mirosevic, one of the club’s former star players who now works in the academy, tells The Athletic. “We are recognised as a leading club here in Chile and we take our responsibility seriously.”
Sierralta travelled to tournaments with UC domestically and abroad including a youth competition in China in 2012 when he was 15. By then he was wearing the captain’s armband. “When he was that age he started showing high physical performance and very good mentality,” says Mirosevic. “He was always considered as an outstanding player.”
It’s why he was brought into the first-team group soon after to play for the team that he watched from the stands with his grandfather as a young child. Aged 17 he sat on the bench on a few occasions and then his debut came two months after his 18th birthday in a Copa Chile match against Barnechea in July 2015. Playing at right-back, Sierralta scored his first goal and UC secured the league title.
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“When I’d almost finished with my career I played with Francisco when he was very young at 17 and 18 years old,” former defender Christian Alvarez tells The Athletic. “He was a very good and very quiet person but a very strong player. I helped him a lot because he was a central defender and when I was injured he would also play in my position. I spoke a lot with him. I was like a footballing father to him.”
Alvarez, like Mirosevic, was an international, while Erick Pulgar (who joined Fiorentina), Guillermo Maripan (Monaco) and Benjamin Kuscevic (Palmeiras) were also Sierralta’s team-mates. He became the next to realise the well-trodden dream of playing European football with Udinese.
“For sure it was a surprise,” says Mirosevic. “Because the main plan for us is that the players gain experience in our first team before getting a transfer. We all still have a lot of wishes to see him with Catolica’s shirt again.”
Sierralta’s time in Italy began on loan at Parma for the 2017-18 season, where he made 10 appearances as the club won promotion back to Serie A. The Chilean was given the No 31 shirt, the same number he has chosen at Watford — with the aim of bringing him the same luck.
By the end of his first season in Italy he was promoted into the full international squad for friendlies against Romania and Serbia and was then handed his debut, a late substitute appearance, against Poland. It meant being in the same squad as his hero growing up, Gary Medel (who also started his career at UC), and the likes of Arturo Vidal and Alexis Sanchez.
He featured less for Parma in Serie A (just six times) but learned from playing alongside Portugal’s experienced centre-back Bruno Alves. Then for the 2019-20 season he was loaned again to Serie B and Empoli.
“Francisco is a defender with a great physical structure, capable of playing both in three and four (in defence), he has a good technique in managing the ball,” Udinese’s decision-maker Carnevale explains. “The loans with Parma and Empoli served him to mature and to find more minutes. In these experiences he has grown above all in the mental aspect.”
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Sierralta played just one game for Udinese in the Coppa Italia in December 2019 before featuring 11 times for Empoli as they finished seventh in Serie B and then missed out on promotion in the play-offs.
To look further into his playing profile, we can turn to his smarterscout ratings, which give detailed analytics on players all over the world. The higher the rating (0-99), the better that player has performed compared with others in his position.
Sierralta’s profile from last season reflects his competence in picking up loose balls (the ball recoveries and interceptions section). His defensive strength was in disrupting opposition moves (91 out of 99) which shows him as someone who is active in making tackles, fouls and blocks when his team do not have the ball.
His link-up play volume (98 out of 99) showed he was playing a lot of short, simple passes without looking to progress it forward too often. His ability to retain the ball was slightly above average (58 out of 99) and could be something he will develop over time.
Then it was time to transition to the Pozzo family’s other interest in England.
“Last summer I personally advised Gino Pozzo to take him to Watford as I believed it was time for Sierralta to be able to compete in a physical and intense championship,” says Carnevale.
Amid the squad churn at Vicarage Road after relegation, which also saw William Troost-Ekong parachuted in from Udinese on a permanent transfer, Sierralta signed a three-year contract. He featured in a shortened pre-season before the deal was announced officially on September 9. He was welcomed into the dressing room by fellow Spanish speakers Kiko Femenia and Marc Navarro, while Adam Masina also made him feel at home.
Sierralta came to England with his long-term girlfriend Paula Arnold. The couple, who met at school, are regular viewers of Ben Foster’s Youtube channel, which Sierralta says helps him improve his English but also keeps him entertained.
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Vladimir Ivic only used him twice though early in his tenure in EFL Cup games against Oxford and Newport County. It was a difficult initial period mainly sitting in the stands but on the training pitch he kept his levels high. He also played two internationals against Uruguay (2-1 defeat) and Colombia (2-2) in October, where he came up against the likes of Luis Suarez and James Rodriguez.
“It was satisfying personally, but I wish we had reached a better result as a team (against Uruguay),” Sierralta said in a recent club interview. “My own performance made me feel happy and since that match I think I have received more attention in Chile. I didn’t play a lot for the national team before that, so when I played that match a lot of people looked at me and watched that game and now I get a lot of comments on my posts on social media and people follow me a lot.”
Two substitute appearances followed under Ivic against Preston and the Serbian’s final match at Huddersfield, before Xisco Munoz’ first match in charge against Norwich presented an opportunity. Sierralta started his first league match and didn’t put a foot wrong, before becoming a main-stay of Spaniard’s line-up.
“Honestly I have always believed in his potential and I am very happy that now he is carving out an important space at Watford,” says Carnevale. “Race after race he is acquiring greater confidence, is giving continuity to his performances and is providing solidity to the department. He is a young boy, just 23 years old, who thanks to Watford can continue his growth path.”
His opening spell in the team has highlighted he is a solid central defender. Playing the majority of the time as a left centre-back he topped the charts for the most central defensive interceptions per 90 minutes within the squad (1.85, to Ben Wilmot’s 1.29, Craig Cathcart’s 1.24, Christian Kabasele’s 0.95 and William Troost-Ekong’s 0.58) while also becoming the best Watford outfield player in aerial duels (68 per cent win rate). The data shows he is an active defender who looks to put a foot in where he can.
“Right now he’s in an excellent moment, he has passion and is a winner, I’m very happy with him,” Xisco tells The Athletic. “He will continue improving because he is young, but he is playing at a top level and we need to continue in this way.
“Outside of the pitch he is always calm and we have an excellent centre-back for the future. He has big ambitions to play at the top level, I’ve seen him before when he plays in Chile, I know about him and I know he can be even better. When he finishes the game he always gives 100 per cent for the team and for a coach that is an important thing.”
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Back at home, they keep tabs on his progress with interest. “Frequently we are listening on radio and watching his matches on TV,” says Mirosevic.
“In the game I think he is a player who still has a lot to grow and that will allow him to reach the top,” adds Farias. “Being one step away from the big clubs (is a good position for him) and I think he can achieve that, for the good of his club and the national team.”
Sierralta will stick with his habits of listening to reggaeton and rock music before games and if he wins, he’ll even superstitiously wear the same underwear for the next game.
If that helps him achieve his next goals — promotion to the Premier League with Watford and playing at the 2022 World Cup with Chile — then club and country will be happy. His advice to achieve that is simple: “Constantly watch what you do and fight hard, and in the end you will get what you look for.”
(Top photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)