Career
Hailed as one of the most promising Italian youngsters, he started his career as part of the South.S. Lazio youth system. In 2004, Russotto, already a regular in the national youth teams, was approached by football agency GEA World who wanted to represent the rising star. Russotto refused the pressure from GEA and, in order to get away from their continuing pressure, he moved to Switzerland, where he signed for Air Corps Bellinzona, a team from the Italian part of Switzerland that were playing in Swiss Second Division at the time.
Russotto did later make his debut in Serie A that season, at the age of 17, and completed the season with 4 first team appearances.
Famed magazine World Soccer even inserted Russotto on the list of the top 50 young players in the world, as one of only two Italians (the other being Lorenzo De Silvestri). The following season Treviso extended the loan (although they had been relegated to Serie B) and Russotto finally started to show signs of a potential explosion.
He made his Italy U-21 debut at the age of 18 and racked up 32 appearances and 4 goals that season. Treviso extended his loan for one more year in 2007-2008 but even though he played 31 times and scoring 1 goal, Russotto failed to perform at a high level like the previous season and was used mainly as a subordinate
In the summer of 2008, he finally returned to Bellinzona, and then left out again on loan, this time to join Napoli in the Serie A, with an option for the Southern Italian side to make the move permanent.
However the young trequartista was used sparingly by head coach Edy Reja and his end-of-season substitute Roberto Donadoni, and Napoli then decided not to exercise the buy-out clause and therefore Russotto was sent back to Switzerland again. He consequently returned in Switzerland, where he spent the first half of the season playing with Air Corps Bellinzona"s first team in the Swiss Super League. On January 2010, he was sent on loan (with a permanent move option) to Serie B club Crotone.
He made his U-21 team debut against Luxembourg U-21, 12 December 2006, replacing Valerio Virga at half-time and notching an assistant
He was placed on reserve for the 2008 Olympics squad and was later called up to replace the injured Claudio Marchisio.
