Nicolò Tresoldi, a 22-year-old Italian-born striker, scored a hat-trick as Club Brugge beat Inter 4-3 at the San Siro on 13 October 2026. It was the first Champions League hat-trick of his career.
Nicolò Tresoldi was born on 20 August 2004 in Cagliari, Sardinia, and later settled with his family in Gubbio, where he played both football and tennis before choosing football. His father, Emanuele Tresoldi, was also a footballer, and his mother is Argentine with Italian roots from Bergamo. After trials at several high-profile Italian clubs, he moved to Hanover, Germany, at 13 for his mother’s work and joined the youth section of Hannover 96. He speaks four languages: Italian, German, English and Spanish.
After impressing for the under-17 and under-19 sides, he signed his first professional contract with Hannover on 5 January 2022, a deal that took effect on his 18th birthday. He made his professional debut in the 2. Bundesliga on 15 July 2022 as an 88th-minute substitute in a 2-1 loss at Kaiserslautern. On 7 June 2025 he joined Belgian club Club Brugge on a contract until 2029.
His first season in Belgium was a success. He scored 20 goals and provided eight assists, finished as the Belgian Pro League top scorer in 2025-26 and won the league title. On 18 September 2025 he scored his first Champions League goal in a 4-1 win over Monaco. Brugge also won the Belgian Super Cup in 2025.
Because of dual citizenship he can represent either Italy or Germany. He made his debut for Germany’s under-19 team on 25 October 2022 in a 1-0 friendly loss to Spain, and played at the 2025 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, where Germany reached the final and lost 3-2 to England. Italy failed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, and Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann almost called him up for the tournament, describing him as a classic number nine and saying his “time will come”.
At the San Siro on Tuesday he scored all three of Brugge’s first goals. He opened the scoring from the penalty spot in the 30th minute, then struck again in the 63rd and 74th minutes, both assisted by Carlos Forbs, to make it 3-1. Inter’s Lautaro Martínez scored twice, but Romeo Vermant’s goal in the 87th minute restored Brugge’s lead, and the visitors won 4-3.
UEFA named him player of the match. Brugge also had a familiar face in goal in former Inter goalkeeper Yann Sommer, who returned to the San Siro for the occasion. Tresoldi has 20 league goals and eight assists to his name from last season and is quickly becoming a name Europe’s bigger clubs will track. The result left Inter, who had already lost 2-1 at Real Madrid on matchday 1, without a point from two games, while Brugge, who lost 3-2 at home to Aston Villa on matchday 1, collected their first three. For a player not yet in the senior national team of either country, it was one of the biggest nights of his career so far.
Image: Club Brugge’s Jan Breydel stadium in Bruges, home of Nicolò Tresoldi’s club (file photo, 2011; not a photo of Tresoldi). Photo: Chivista / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
