Sandro Tonali’s tattoos are easiest to understand through what he has said about them. In AC Milan’s 2022 Under My Skin interview, he talked about his grandmother’s birth date, family portraits, the numbers on his hand and the word “impossible” marked through in red. Football runs through the collection, though not every design is a club tribute.
Some pieces have a clear story; others came from his tattooist. Here’s what Tonali has confirmed and what the photographs show without assigning a meaning to every shaded detail.
The hand tattoo turns ‘impossible’ into a personal message
The word on Tonali’s hand is “impossible,” with red strokes crossing its opening letters. In Newcastle United’s profile of the midfielder, he explains it simply: “Nothing is impossible. This is my message.” The red marks change how the word reads rather than replacing it with another slogan.
The lettering sits where it can be seen during handshakes, celebrations and everyday gestures. This match photo isn’t a close-up, but the word is visible beside the larger sleeve, showing how the small hand piece fits into the wider work.
His first tattoo records his grandmother’s birth date
Tonali said his first tattoo was his grandmother Gina’s birth date, 4 September 1944, on his left arm. He described her as the person who mattered most to him then and still matters now. She calls after his goals and before derbies, and he has said she was the person who made him a Milan supporter.
He’d wanted a meaningful tattoo for a long time and chose a studio in his hometown. His family generally wasn’t keen on tattoos, he said, but this was an easy decision for him. In another interview, he recalled that he didn’t have to think long about what the first piece should be.
The arm work is a family album, not a random sleeve
On his right arm, Tonali has a tattoo of his dog Margot, a cross with a lion, portraits of his parents and a heart meant for the family. He said Margot’s tattoo took several hours in one sitting and hurt because the area was soft. When he spoke in 2022, his brother and sister had not yet been added to that family grouping.
Tonali said many other ideas came from his tattooist, so the leaves and shaded filler shouldn’t be given invented meanings. He described building the right arm in stages—one half, then the other, then the back—because he wanted to complete the area as a whole.
The rose and the hand numbers connect his tattoos to home
Tonali has the numbers 8 and 4 on his hand. The 8 is the shirt number associated with him; the 4 recalls Brescia, where his father Nik carried him to matches when he was a child. Tonali remembered sitting on his father’s shoulders as part of that story.
The rose is for his mother, Maria Rosa. He said he chose it because of her name. In his account, that flower has a specific family connection; other designs may simply have come from his tattooist. The AC Milan photo shows the hand and arm together, though match pictures can obscure smaller details.
The Brescia number 34 marks an earlier football chapter
Tonali also has an image of himself as a child wearing number 34, the shirt he wore at Brescia, his first professional club. He placed the tattoo on his left side and described it as a reference to that early part of his career.
The number 34 and the hand’s number 4 both reach back to Brescia, but they mean different things: one recalls the shirt he wore, the other a childhood memory with his father.
A Milan tribute was only a future idea in 2022
In April 2022, Tonali said he wasn’t planning another tattoo right away, though he could imagine marking his Milan years because they meant a great deal to him. He said he’d want any future club tattoo to represent the years or the moment, not just put the club name on his skin. That was a possibility he described then, not confirmation that he later got one.
How to read the collection without guessing at every detail
Tonali has explained the date on his arm, Margot, the family imagery, the numbers, his mother’s rose and the hand message. His interviews are the best source for those meanings; match photos help show where the designs sit, though sleeves move and lighting can hide small details.
The work is dense and mostly black and grey in the available views, with the red marks on “impossible” as a clear color accent. His own account leaves room for both personal references and designs suggested by his tattooist, without forcing every piece into one theme.
Watch Tonali explain the stories behind his tattoos in AC Milan’s Under My Skin interview below.