Tresoldi was born in Cagliari, Sardinia, and is the son of Emanuele Tresoldi, a former defender who enjoyed a 20-year career as a professional footballer, taking in spells at Atalanta, Cesena, Novara and SPAL among a host of other clubs, and earned six caps for Italy’s Under-21s. From a young age, it became clear that the football gene had been successfully passed on to Nicolo.
The family relocated to Gubbio during Nicolo’s childhood, and Tresoldi played for local academy ASD Fontanelle, where he thrived as a central striker under his first coach Marco Bedini. A host of big clubs showed interest in Tresoldi as a 12-year-old prospect, but he had no luck initially, and split his time playing a different sport.
“He had trials with Atalanta, Milan, Fiorentina, Bologna and Juventus, but they all said ‘we’ve already got players of that level,’ and rejected him,” Bedini revealed to La Gazzetta dello Sport. “They said it to me as well. Nico would return to Gubbio as if nothing had happened and just continue scoring goals. He was passionate about tennis and enjoyed it there. For a while, he juggled his racket with football boots. Sometimes, during the week, he would miss training because he was away on trials.”
Tresoldi grew up as an AC Milan fan, and, according to Bedini, modelled his game on a club legend known for his poaching skills: “Even at the age of 12 he’d score in any way, with his right foot, left, headers, sneaking into the box. After all, his hero was always Pippo Inzaghi. At times he’d imitate Inzaghi too, we’d have specific training sessions to show him how to move inside the penalty area.”
Tresoldi has confirmed his allegiance to the Rossoneri in his own interviews, once saying: “I still follow them. I owe everything to my grandfather: he was a Milan fan and was [Marco] Van Basten’s golf instructor!”
