All Time Legends - Gabriel Omar Batistuta

Gabriel Omar Batistuta (born 1 February 1969), nicknamed Batigol as well as El Ángel Gabriel (Spanish for Angel Gabriel), is a retired professional footballer. The prolific Argentine striker played most of his club football at Fiorentina in Italy, and is the tenth top scorer of all-time in the Italian Serie A league, with 184 goals in 318 matches. On the international level, he is Argentina's all-time leading goalscorer, with 56 goals in 78 national team matches, and represented his country at three World Cups. In 2004, he was named in the FIFA 100 list of the "125 Greatest Living Footballers".With an all-round game with clinical finishing, heading and free-kick taking abilities, he is known as one of the most complete strikers of his generation. Diego Maradona has also said that Batistuta is the best striker he has ever seen play the game


When his club Fiorentina was relegated to Serie B in 1993, Batistuta stayed with the club and helped it return to the top-flight league a year later. A popular sporting figure in Florence, the Fiorentina fans erected a life-size bronze statue of him in 1996, in recognition of his performances for Fiorentina. He never won the Italian league with Fiorentina, but when he moved to Roma in 2000, he finally won the Serie A championship to crown his career in Italy. He played his last professional season in Qatar with Al-Arabi before he retired in 2005

While playing for Argentina in the 1991 Copa América, the vice-president of Fiorentina was impressed by Batistuta's skills and signed him for the Italian club. He had a fine start in Serie A, scoring 13 goals in his debut season. However, the following season (1992–93) Fiorentina lost in the relegation battle and were demoted to Serie B, despite Batistuta's 16 league goals. The club returned to Serie A after one season in Serie B, with the contribution of 16 goals from Batistuta and the management of Claudio Ranieri.
At Fiorentina, Batistuta found his best form. He was the top scorer of the 1994–95 season with 26 goals, and he broke Ezio Pascutti's 30-year-old record by scoring in all of the first 11 matches of the season. In the 1995–96 season Fiorentina won the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa. In the two-legged cup final against Atalanta, Batistuta scored a goal in each fixture as Fiorentina won 3-0 on aggregate.


After his failure to win the Italian championship with Fiorentina, Batistuta started considering a transfer to a bigger team. In an effort to keep Batistuta, Fiorentina hired Giovanni Trapattoni as coach and promised to do everything to win the Scudetto. After an excellent start to the season, Batistuta suffered an injury that kept him out of action for more than a month. Losing momentum, Fiorentina lost the lead and finished the season in third place, which gave them the chance to participate in the Champions League in the following season.

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