In February of 2012 Tottenham Hotspur announced the signing of an 18 year-old Australian who had impressed while on trial at Spurs earlier in the year. That player was Giancarlo Gallifuoco, who, in just over a year at Spurs, has already had quite an impact on the youth teams.
Gallifuoco has been used this season to add bite to the midfield of the U-21 side's 4-3-3 formation. Gallifuoco often found himself acting as the shield in front of the defense and behind more attacking midfielders of Tom Carrol and Nabil Bentaleb. At other times Gallifuoco found himself deployed in central defense where he also showed very well.
The 19 year-old Australian has been capped at multiple levels of Australia's youth set-up, including the U-20's. However, he, like fellow Aussie and Tottenham teammate Massimo Luongo, missed on an opportunity to represent his country at the U-20 World Cup.
Physically, Gallifuoco is a big strong player capable of playing in defensive midfield. He had a knee injury last year, but any ill-effects from that seem to be past and his mobility is pretty good. Gallifuoco provides a bit of an aerial presence and even scored a winning header against West Ham in the U-21 Premier League this year. The main problem for Gallifuoco is that he's a bit of a "tweener". He's not quite good enough of a passer to be a viable option in midfield and he's not quite strong enough to be a central defender.
Gallifuoco got a lot of great experience playing in the U-21 Premier League and the Next Gen series this last year. Next season he will be 20 and it seems likely that he will be heading out on loan, probably to a League One or League Two club.