Sandro Tonali has had a brilliant start to his Newcastle United career, scoring in his Premier League debut in the 5-1 romping of Aston Villa, and he’s already gotten his brand new chant from the Magpies faithful, who can’t get enough of him.
The Italian midfielder was involved in one of the most shocking transfers of the 2023 summer window, when he was forced to join Newcastle United from AC Milan due to the latter’s financial troubles. The Magpies had to pay a £60 million fee to get the deal done, but they added a quality young midfielder to their ranks as they gear up to fight in the UEFA Champions League.
Tonali made an immediate impact on his league debut, producing an amazing performance against Villa. He scored his side’s first goal of the campaign, a well-taken finish from close range, to shut up the doubters who claimed that ‘he wasn’t happy’ at Newcastle because he didn’t smile that much.
What is the Sandro Tonali chant and which song inspired it?
The Italian midfielder has already won over the Newcastle faithful, who seem to be in love with having such a silky midfielder among their ranks going forward. In Tonali, the Magpies seem to have struck a bargain as his debut proved that the midfielder can do anything – from scoring goals, creating chances, winning duels or moving the ball into dangerous areas.
Some Newcastle fans have decided to show love to the 23-year-old by creating a new chant dedicated to him. The chant was created soon after his arrival from Milan and debuted at St. James Park in the game against Villa.
The Tonali chant created by the Newcastle faithful, goes something like this:
‘Sandro Tonali, Sandro Tonali, He drinks Moretti, He eats spaghetti, He hates f****** Sunderland’
This is sung to the tune of Los Lobos cult famous ‘La Bamba’ song, even though the lyrics are quite different as that song is of course in Spanish.
There are a lot of Italian-infused references in this, like ‘Moretti’ is actually the Italian beer brand Birra Moretti and Spaghetti is obviously a famous Italian dish. The Newcastle fans decided to sing this on the top of their lungs in the Aston Villa clash, but not everyone has been so impressed with their rendition of it.
Is the Tonali chant even original?
Some are complaining about how the ‘hates f****** Sunderland’ bit makes little sense for a player like Tonali – who probably doesn’t even know much about the rivalry because he spent his entire career in Italy. Moreover, Newcastle have also been accused of directly stealing a similar chant that was created by Tottenham Hotspur and Leeds United fans.
The first time that this kind of a chant became famous was when the Spurs matchgoing faithful decided to conjure up a chant for their former manager Antonio Conte. Their chant went something like this
‘Antonio Conte,
Antonio Conte,
He eats spaghetti,
He drinks Moretti
He hates f****** Chelsea…’
It appears that the Newcastle faithful have basically copied the entire lyrics to the chant and just replaced Conte’s name with Tonali, paying no heed to originality at all. At least the Leeds supporters slightly tweaked Willy Gnoto’s chant which was also inspired by the Tottenham fans’ chant, as theirs goes something like:
‘Willy Gnonto,
Willy Gnonto,
He eats spaghetti,
He drinks Moretti,
his c***’s f****** massive.’
Leeds were actually embarrassed by this chant, and the club urged their fan groups to stop using that final bit of the chant, which they felt bought into a stereotype about dark-skinned players. The Newcastle fans, however, seem to have no shame in copying the Conte chant bar from bar and sticking Tonali’s name in it to call their own, but they probably aren’t the first to copy another fanbase’s tune either.
Tonali, who is still learning the English language, probably won’t be able to understand this chant yet but going by his passionate performance in his debut for the club – he already loves hearing the roar of St. James Park.