Martin Baturina, Como's 23-year-old Croatian midfielder, scored the goal that drew his side level against Arsenal in a pre-season friendly in London, with the match finishing 1-1 before the Premier League champions won 5-4 on penalties. The result was secondary. The performance was not.
For a player whose name has circulated through European transfer discussions all summer, a goal at the Emirates — against the club Fàbregas himself once called home — is the kind of moment that sharpens minds in boardrooms. Baturina did not merely participate in a high-profile friendly; he answered the occasion directly, providing the equaliser that kept Como level through ninety minutes against one of the continent's better-resourced squads.
The context around Fàbregas's Como is worth holding onto. The club finished the 2025-26 Serie A season in fourth place with 71 points from 38 matches — a record of 20 wins, 11 draws, and 7 defeats, conceding only 29 goals across the campaign. That defensive solidity gave Como a platform, and Baturina was a significant part of what happened at the other end: six goals and three assists across 29 league appearances, at an average match rating of 7.10. His AI overall score sits at 76 out of 100, with a projected ceiling of 84 — numbers that suggest a player still ascending rather than one already at his limit.
Fàbregas, speaking ahead of the Arsenal fixture, described Como as needing to show character and expressed his own satisfaction at returning to the Emirates as a manager. His side did show character. Baturina's equaliser — cancelling out an opener from Arsenal's Lewis-Skelly — was the clearest expression of it. The penalty shootout defeat, in which Álvaro Morata missed the decisive kick, does not diminish what the ninety minutes demonstrated.
The transfer picture remains active. Interest from clubs outside Italy has been documented across the summer, and a goal against Arsenal in London does nothing to cool that interest. Como's fourth-place finish gives Fàbregas leverage to argue that Baturina belongs in a project with genuine European ambitions — but it also makes him harder to hold. At 23, with a season of consistent Serie A output behind him and a pre-season that has now included a goal at one of Europe's most recognisable grounds, Baturina enters the new campaign as one of the more compelling midfielders in Italian football's upper tier.
The question is no longer whether he can perform at this level. It is whether Como can keep him long enough to find out how high the ceiling actually is.