Italians wrap their cloak of acclaim especially round strangers who consistently hit the net. They revere the art.

Balbo, another Argentine, is winding down his career at A.S. Roma while Batistuta, in renaissance after a brooding 12 months, is back.

Thirty-five goalkeepers from 25 Italian clubs know his sting, though some never felt a thing. He struck when they were unaware.

They know, and every defender knows, that his right foot is most powerful and the left foot and head capable. They know, too, that Batistuta's potency increases toward the end of a match when opponents lose concentration.

In the purple of Fiorentina, ''The Archangel Gabriel'' opened this season with three goals against Udinese. Next, against Bari, he struck inside 12 seconds, and later from long range.

In the San Siro, determined to outshine Inter Milan's Ronaldo, Batistuta twice hit the underside of the goal frame. Denial spurred him. From an angle so tight it almost forbade an attempt, he arrowed the ball beyond the open-mouthed goalie.

At Empoli last Sunday, Batistuta made it seven goals from four starts. He is chasing his own Italian all-comers record of 15 goals from 11 consecutive Serie A contests at the start of the1994-5 season.

Batistuta is a phenomenon, if occasionally a troubled one. Intellect can inhibit the scoring process because to question the logic of shooting from improbable angles must complicate something better left to instinct.

Batistuta, undoubtedly intelligent, ignores that logic for club and, when chosen, country. He has outscored Diego Maradona for Argentina.

Yet, if he sometimes ponders the worth of his existence, not least on European club nights when he has no platform because the Florentine team is not supportive enough, it comes from his background.

Batistuta is a reluctant professional. He was content six years ago playing for enjoyment while furthering his schooling. He had eyes on a medical career.

That, however, takes time and study. It could not lift Batistuta, his mother and later his own family, out of relative hardship in Santa Fe, where he was born in 1969. Soccer has that power. At 18, comparatively late, Batistuta was lured to Newell's Old Boys in Rosario. A talent scout by the name of Bernardo Griffa, his eye as keen as Batistuta's, sold the teenager the dream.

It was, inevitably, a self-seeking agent, Settimo Aloisio, who arranged Batistuta's export, from his second club, Boca Juniors, to Fiorentina. Indeed, Aloisio did a double-deal, persuading the Cecchi Gorri family in Florence to take Batistuta and his strike partner Diego Lattore as a duo.

Lattore, already in his second university year, studying economics, was the main attraction. He came with a video of more than 100 goals, scored with a virtuoso's vision and touch.

Lattore came from a close middle-class Buenos Aires family. He seemed made for the mantle of the New Diego, the ''Good Diego,'' as Argentina's El Grafico magazine dubbed him.

Alas, frail either in body or, perhaps ultimately, in spirit, Lattore never made a mark in Florence. He was loaned out to Swiss clubs, back to Boca for a summer, more recently to Tenerife in Spain. Still an undeniably hypnotic talent, but by now left in the wake of ''Batigol.''

Relentless has been the strike rate of Batistuta's six seasons in front of the adoring followers of the Curva Fiesole, Fiorentina's partisan and demanding semicircle of soccer obsessives.

''The boys on the Fiesole,'' he once said, ''were the only ones who believed in me during my first, difficult six months.''

These were months, apparently, that made the long study of medicine a yearned-for alternative. Months in which colleagues ignored him and newspaper columnists lampooned him.

Batistuta wears his hair long, like Mario Kempes, the striker he idolized.Yet, Daniel Passarella, the Argentine national coach,issued a sergeant major's diktat: Snip those locks or be locked out of the national squad.

Batistuta met stubbornness with stubbornness and stayed too long outside the Argentine selection.

Last season, he suffered serious injuries for the first time. This is remarkable because, at 5 foot 9 inches (1 meter 75) , he is no Hercules in the No. 9 shirt, a position where the buffeting was so bad that the much taller Marco Van Basten was crippled into early retirement.

Last year, Batistuta lost his enthusiasm. He ached for a move, but that was more than Vittorio Cecchi Gorri dared permit, even though, a couple of seasons ago, Real Madrid offered $18 million.

''Commercially, it is tempting,'' Cecchi Gorri said. ''But Batistuta is the emblem of Florence, almost as if he were the son of Lorenzo dei Medici.''

So, a Florentine ''prisoner'' he remains. The captain now, selflessly making runs for others, moving back to defend, still uncannily eluding markers to find space to score.

''I'm still at Fiorentina,'' he said last week. ''So, whatever I do carries less weight than at Inter or Barcelona.''

Inter and Barca had been bidders last season, and some suggested Manchester United, the English champion, should have been. United, desperately seeking a big-match striker, has just announced record profits of $44 million. Batistuta, meanwhile, craves a place on the biggest stage in his sport.

Rob Hughes is on the staff of The Times of London.