Marcello Trotta spent two years at Brentford on loan from Fulham. He missed a penalty as the Bees missed out on promotion on the final day of the season.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Trotta has recollected one of his career defining moments.
The last day of the 2012/13 season saw second place, Doncaster Rovers travel to Griffin Park
Two points separated the sides with the winners of the game, confirming automatic promotion.
0-0 in the 94th minute, Toumani Diagouraga was brought down and a penalty is awarded.
Club captain, and first choice penalty taker, Kevin O’Connor looked set to take the spot kick.
Trotta took the ball and that was it, he wasn’t giving it up on it.
His penalty smashed the bar and what happened next was quite unbelievable.
Rovers went up the other end and James Coppinger scored to gift his side the title.
As a Fulham loanee, Trotta was subject to a lot of flack from fans for the costly miss.
He also saw a lot of positive messages from fans who didn’t blame him for the loss.
What has Marcello Trotta said?
The first question is why did he take the penalty? O’Connor had took them all season but didn’t take the most important one?
Trotta put the record straight on this: “I just felt confident to take the penalty.
“He wanted to take it, I wanted to take it. There was a bit of chat, it wasn’t an argument.”
To miss the penalty and then see the opposition score was heart wrenching.
“I felt empty in the moment, you don’t really think of anything. I didn’t fully realised it happened, I kept going: ‘It’s not real, it’s not real. It’s not possible.'”
The loss saw Brentford drop into the play off places, but with a ‘sad’ and ‘disappointing’ dressing room, that was going to be hard.
Losing 2-1 in the final to Yeovil Town saw Trotta turn back to his penalty miss: “I thought about the penalty because it was related to that game.”
The Italian returned to the Bees the following season with promotion on his mind: “For me it was a mission to complete. It was not a revenge for the fans, it was to give something back to the club.
“It was more to finish what we left off. We didn’t complete the last step, so it was personal to Brentford.”
The forward scored 13 goals as his side achieved promotion.
After beating Preston North End, Trotta’s redemption was done: “You can see in my face, mission complete.”
It has gone full circle for him, seeing the clubs meteoric rise up the leagues: “What they have done in the ten years since then has been incredible.”
A happy ending for all involved, a great story of a negative moment turned positive.