Anastasios Douvikas scored twice as Como came from behind to beat Famalicão in their third pre-season fixture, a result that underlines the 26-year-old's standing as the focal point of Fàbregas's attack heading into what will be the club's first Champions League campaign.
The timing matters. Como finished fifth in Serie A with 68 points from 37 matches — 19 wins, 11 draws, seven defeats — and Douvikas's 13 goals and one assist across that league season were central to that achievement. A brace in a pre-season comeback is a small data point on its own, but it arrives at a moment when Cesc Fàbregas has publicly acknowledged that Como could enter the Champions League group stage with a squad of only 16 or 17 players if reinforcements do not arrive. The forward's availability and form are not incidental details; they are structural necessities.
Douvikas's season average rating of 6.80 and an AI overall score of 72 out of 100 suggest a player operating close to his current ceiling but with identifiable room to grow. That gap between actual and potential is the most interesting number in his profile. At 26, he is at the age when forwards either consolidate or stagnate, and the step up to European competition will test which direction he takes.
The club's transfer activity adds context. Como are pursuing defensive reinforcements — Jhon Lucumí of Bologna has been linked — and have been rebuffed in at least one attempt to strengthen elsewhere. Fàbregas's squad-depth concern is genuine, not rhetorical. In that environment, a striker who arrives at pre-season sharp and scoring is not merely useful; he is load-bearing.
Two goals against Famalicão will not settle the question of whether Douvikas can perform at Champions League level. What they confirm is that he enters this pre-season in the same productive condition that made him Como's most reliable attacking presence last term. For a club navigating genuinely new territory, that continuity is the foundation everything else is built on.