With Zdeněk Zeman as manager, Verratti excelled as a deep-lying playmaker in a Pescara team which won the 2011–12 Serie B title playing "the best football in Italy", earning promotion to Serie A the following season. After helping Pescara to promotion to Serie A, Verratti received the 2012 Bravo Award for the best player under the age of 21 in Europe, and was reportedly wanted by Napoli, Roma and Juventus, as well as Carlo Ancelotti's Paris Saint-Germain. At the 2012 AIC Gran Gala del Calcio, he was elected the best player of the 2011–12 Serie B season, along with former Pescara teammates Ciro Immobile and Lorenzo Insigne.