Chiarini revels in role of underdog

Lorenzo Amoruso is not known for his modesty. The Rangers defender's naked torso has featured too often in tabloid newspapers to be taken seriously, but it is not today's appearance in front of live television cameras that appears to be hogging his attention.

The Italian has a more pressing date after the Scottish Premier League leaders' live BBC game at Partick Thistle. The mirror in Firhill's visitors' dressing-room is likely to monopolised by the rugged boy from Bari.

Few in Glasgow are unaware of "Lorenzo Amoruso's Christmas Party Night". A local radio station has been ceaselessly plugging it, while posters and press adverts feature the footballer trying to look mean and moody, dressed in a Santa Claus outfit and promising himself as the prize for "one of the three lucky ladies who take part in Lorenzo's version of Blind Date".

Yet in the opposite dressing-room will be a compatriot whose impact on the pitch has been equally impressive. Daniele Chiarini has not reached the stage yet where he is able to exploit his fame like Amoruso, but football's version of Blind Date could have come up with the perfect match in Partick Thistle.

The 23-year-old centre-back was one of the hundreds of casualties of Italian football's summer financial implosion. Out of a job after being released by Udinese, he found his way to Scotland. Partick Thistle offered Chiarini a trial just as they were discovering that the defence which won them promotion last season was never going to survive in the top flight.

"Since I got in the team, we have not lost a home game," Chiarini said proudly on Friday. Gerry Collins, the assistant manager, acknowledges that the young Italian has been instrumental in transforming a side who tamely surrendered 3-0 at Ibrox early in the season into one who have only lost twice in 10 home games – to Celtic and Hibernian – and who were only beaten at Parkhead in the League Cup after an 18-kick penalty shootout.

"We actually tried Daniele in midfield in that trial game and he was like a fish out of water," said Collins. "But he is a great reader of the game and was more suited to the back three. Our home record since he came speaks for itself."

Though Chiarini shares a link with Amoruso, the contrast between the men could hardly be greater. Both played for Fiorentina, yet while the latter cost Rangers £4 million in 1997, Chiarini is only on a short-term contract.

"Lorenzo left Fiorentina the season before I arrived," Chiarini explained. "I didn't know him, but we shared some friends and when I came to Glasgow, we met a few times and talked about Scottish football. He's played for Rangers for five years and was Scotland's player of the year last season, and the first Catholic to captain them, so his advice can help."

It is a measure of Chiarini's hunger that he arrived in Glasgow with barely a smattering of English, but now has little problem conversing with those around him. "I could not understand anyone at first," he smiled. "But communication is important for a defender. Now I have 20 fundamental football phrases. If you come to another country, you can't just play football. You must learn about everything, the lifestyle, the language."

It was his own country's obsession with imported footballers that forced Chiarini to quit Calcio for Clydeside. Italy's top clubs reacted to mounting debts – caused largely by recruiting squads of often unused, expensive foreign players – by slashing their wage bills last June.

"At Udinese, we had 15 Italians and 20 foreigners in the first-team squad," Chiarini said. "It's always the younger, Italian players who are the first to go. It was the same at Fiorentina. I played one Serie A game, against Sampdoria, when I was 18, and I marked Vincenzo Montella, who is now a star at Roma. However, the club always want to sign big-name defenders, so they let me go.

"At Udinese, we had players like the Brazilian Amoruso [now with Borussia Dortmund], but other foreign players were not so special. Every club president spent too much money and debts are now a big problem everywhere. Fiorentina are now in Serie C2 [fourth division] because they went bankrupt." While Rangers may share the cosmopolitan outlook of Serie A, with just three Scots in today's side, Partick Thistle are stubbornly – if not economically – traditional. "I am the only foreign guy here," said Chiarini. "Yet I think we are a good team.

"In Scotland, the fans are passionate, but so are the players. You can feel the spirit of the guys at Partick Thistle. They want to show people they should be in the top league. Maybe we can prove that against Rangers."