What makes Argentina’s Luciano González Rizzoni such fun to watch

There’s an Instagram account called @gabrugby, which uses AI to generate Top Trumps-style cards for players worldwide. Athletes are scored on fitness, power, attack, defence, pace and physicality – before a grand total, out of 100, is produced.

You can scroll for a long time (be careful: it’s a devilishly addictive account…) without finding anyone who has snuck above 90. Household names, Champions Cup winners, individuals with multiple World Cup campaigns to their names – all hovering around the 85-mark.

Apart from one.

Luciano González Rizzoni, the supercomputers reckon, is a towering, unplayable, 94: the card which, post-deal and pre-victory, has you suppressing a smirk behind your hand. His numbers are stellar.

There are a few other statistics worth mentioning here. The La Rioja-born juggernaut has been named Player of the Final in three of his last nine HSBC SVNS tournaments; sits behind only Santi Gómez Cora – now his coach – in the Los Pumas sevens try-scoring charts; and leads this year’s series for carries and try-braces.

He’s third for line breaks, has lobbed five assists into the mix, and has contributed more offloads, tackles, and steals than any other Argentine.

On the extra-curricular side of things, he’s just added a 29th tattoo to one of the most feared frames on the circuit, and there are so many Nike trainers lining the walls of his house that it felt unfair to make him count those too…

But what makes González Rizzoni so much fun to watch is unquantifiable. There are the jackhammer hand-offs; there’s the way he clamps over any vaguely winnable-looking rucks with utter disregard for his own wellbeing. 

Or there’s the fact that, for all the snorting, grunting power, he has the feet of a ballerina, and a dazzling array of velvety, creative touches. 

The theatre of it all only enhances things: the pounding of his bowling ball shoulders in the tunnel; the deliberately slow emergence onto the pitch; the ceremonial touching of the grass as he crosses that white line; the anthem tears.

González Rizzoni is a pretty peerless playing card, sure – but he’s at his most fun when he flips the whole table.

To rewind: playing rugby was inevitable, given his father’s coaching role at Rioja’s Club Social. But, once his talent was obvious, the thrice-weekly 140km pilgrimage to train with La Tablada was a little less straightforward. 

The club’s alumni include Gastón Revol, Matías Alemanno, and circuit newcomer Facundo Pueyrredon: clearly they’re getting something right.

So it was at the age of just 19, and on the other side of the world, Rizzoni would debut in sky blue in Wellington in 2017. He told journalists how much he was, as a 15s specialist, relishing the dynamism of sevens.

González Rizzoni is baby-faced in images from that event, but that’s not where ‘Luchito’ has evolved the most. He described his game at the time as ‘physical’, but – in reality – he was just getting started.

With each season, the athlete now dubbed ‘bulldog’, ‘shark’, and ‘beast’ by adoring Pumas 7s fans has layered on trademark muscle. It’s with this transformation we begin our conversation.

“I’ve made a pretty big physical change since [the Olympic Games in] Tokyo,” he said. “It wasn’t planned – it’s happened gradually – but I definitely prefer the way it allows me to play now. It’s different. I don’t have quite the same speed as I did back then, but I’m still quick and can use my strength to my advantage.”

It often looks as though head coach Gómez Cora has handed him havoc-wreaking carte blanche, but he laughs off the idea that his brief is simply ‘go and make magic’.

“I don’t have free rein,” he said. “Santi’s good – he forgives me sometimes when I stray outside of the game plan, but there are patterns in our play which I try to stick with. 

“There are times I’m allowed to crash into people, and do all the things I like, but not always.”

When he does bang the ‘entertainment’ button, it’s ‘entirely instinct’, he insisted.

“The footwork, the fends, the lines: I don’t plan any of it. It’s my natural game – imposing myself and using that physical power – so it’s just what comes naturally to me in the moment. 

“Luckily, when I improvise, it tends to pay off. And, if I’m unpredictable even for myself, then it’s harder for opponents to read.”

He’s the hulking ying to Marcos Moneta’s yang, he reckons. Their defence-splitting partnership is firing better than ever, thanks to a shared Super Sevens secondment in France, wearing the colours of Union Bordeaux-Bègles last summer – but the whole team’s clicking, and straining at the leash for the series’ Asian swing.

Argentina’s #11 enthuses about their on and off-field chemistry, and how quickly their debutants have slotted in. The plan for this campaign – the first of a new Olympic cycle – was consistent semi-finals and, ‘strong performances, playing our style of rugby’.

“We’re absolutely on the right path,” González Rizzoni insisted.

They opened with a third place in Dubai. Followed it up with fifth in Cape Town. Tournaments graced with moments of brilliance, but spoiled by occasional lapses of cohesion and accuracy. In this year’s frenetic series, you can’t afford a bad restart receipt: let alone a bad game. 

They got away with it in Perth – tight victories over the hosts and the Blitzboks sandwiching a slip-up against the USA – before hitting their stride, and winning their knockout fixtures with an aggregate score of 108-24. Demolition jobs, with González Rizzoni the wrecking ball.

A 10th victory in a row in Vancouver, where his thunderous involvements on both sides of the ball would earn him another felt hat and glass trophy to squeeze in among the Nikes, would see Los Pumas at the top of the standings.

Is he playing the best rugby of his career? “I don’t know about that - but I’m enjoying it a lot and think that’s noticeable on the pitch. Having fun, and relishing the way we’re playing the game, helps a huge amount. I feel I can really contribute to the team.’

There’s victory in their crosshairs in Hong Kong and Singapore, before they’ll look to go one better than last year at the Grand Final, but that’s not all on the bucket list.

“I still dream of playing for Los Pumas in 15s – and of my rugby taking me to France or England,” he muses, touching again on that stint in Bordeaux, and lighting up at the prospect of following Tokyo teammates Rodrigo Isgró, Lucio Cinti, and Ignacio Mendy into northern hemisphere powerhouses.

Fans would be delighted – there are vociferous calls beneath his often-viral highlights for the winger to switch formats – but he’s adamant that he has a job to do first. 

Hong Kong. Singapore. Los Angeles. Opponents to flatten, and teammates to unleash. That 94 score will take some maintaining, after all…