Batistuta Uncovered
Champions League Magazine
April/May, 2000
Which footballer do you admire most?
What advice would you give anyone who wanted to be a player?
If you could have one thing in football what would it be?
Do you think Manchester United are good enough to win it again?
If you could have joined another club, who would it have been?
So do you think you will ever leave Fiorentina?
What are the good and bad points of Italian football?
Has the pressure from fans, and the media, ever made you feel like quitting Italian football?
An easy one to start with, thank you. I have always looked up to Mario Kempes (former Argentine World Cup winner), a player I would say was way beyond his generation. I can recall as small boy how I wanted to be Kempes after watching him in the 1978 World Cup. He wasn't what you would call a highly skilled player, but he played with his heart. The Argentinean people like that. They have had players like Diego Maradona who could do everything, but they like a player who is not blessed with special skills, but fights hard and is committed. If I could have been any player, not me, I would have chosen Kempes.
No matter what anyone tells you, believe in yourself. I was I would never be a footballer, that I was a dreamer who lived with my head in the clouds. But you find your own destiny. With hard work dedication you can do anything. If you put your mind to something, no matter how unlikely, you can live the dream. Life as no boundaries and boundaries are there to overcome.
To get my hands on major trophy. I hope I don't look back on my career without winning a major tournament with either my club or my country. I love the game, but the game is about success and that has been in short supply in my career. The World Cup or the European Cup would be nice, just one big trophy for me to cherish in retirement. At the moment I'm playing in the Champions League and Fiorentina are doing well. But I don't know whether we are good enough to win it. I hope so.
They have proved by virtue of their achievements last season that they are one of the best club sides in European. if not world football. It's not for me to say that they have the ability to retain the European Cup - that is harder than winning it - but they are the team to beat. They are the team everyone wants to win against. Like when Marseille won in France. Even if they don't go on to win the European Cup, that victory will still mean everything to Marseille.
I wold have loved to have played Premiership football in England. The game is so exciting and passionate and the fans are understanding and appreciative. I'm very lucky that I enjoy a good realationship with the fans in Italy, but others are driven mad by the intense pressure. If I could have joined another club, it would have been Manchester United. I admire everything about them. I spoke with people from Manchester on a couple of occasions but, for one reason or another, we could not come to any agreement. But I have no regrets.
It's unlikely, I have three years left on my contract and then I will probably think about retirement. My family are very settled here, they love the Italian way of life and Florence is a beautiful palce to raise our children. Also, I have a love for this club that would be difficult to break. That's life, isn't it? However, once I've stopped playing, I will probably go home, back to Argentina. I miss my country and there are times when I just want to go home and escape everything but I usually snap out of it and get on with my life.
The good things are very good. The football is still the best and the best players still want to come here. The game is very demanding and the commitment is second to none. You have to be at the top of your game to make it here. If you are successful, life is very good for you and it affords you all the nice things you want from life. The bad side is the intensity and the demands. Your life is sometimes not your own and everybody feels they own you. The fans want big slice of you, they feel you are their property.
I've never let it get to me, even at times when I've felt things have not been going so well, I hate defeat - like all other footballers. I share the passion and the desire for success that the fans have, that the club president has, but I can only give my best. I cannot do any more. In a way, I've been very fortunte because I have always earned the respect of the people around me. They know I am a man of passin, they know I will give all that I have