Gabriel Batistuta, a treasure to soccer fans

Still going strong at 31, the classy Gabriel Batistuta is a treasure to soccer fans. Not only is he adored, he also commands the respect of fellow footballers.

Eight minutes from the end of last Sunday night's Serie A clash between league leaders AS Roma and Fiorentina and with the score at 0-0, conventional wisdom bit the dust.

As Roma's majestic Argentinian striker Gabriel Batistuta volleyed home an imperious 25-metre winner, the wise guys and the cynics could only admit that they had got it wrong.

With eight weeks of the season gone, the capital club is currently three points clear of Atalanta at the top.More importantly, it is six clear of Juventus, seven in front of Parma and nine clear of both AC Milan and, cross-town rival and reigning champion Lazio.

These are of course early days. Yet, even at this stage it is evident that Roma is going to have a say in this year's contest, presumably right down to the wire.

Only one man provides the explanation for this new situation - 31-year-old Batistuta.

And we come to the wise guys and cynics again. When Roma announced last summer that it had splashed out US$35 million (S$61 million) to persuade the Argentinian to leave Fiorentina after nine seasons with the Florence club, many 'experts' shook their heads in dismay.

Not that anyone doubted his class and talent. He has long been widely recognised as not only the outstanding striker of the Italian game in the 90s but also one of the greatest to ever grace Italian soccer.

For years now, the name Batistuta has been a byword for sporting excellence, a player whose innate goal-scoring talent is matched by a fiercely competitive temperament that team-mates find both inspirational and charismatic.

If there were reservations about his move, they concern his age. He will be 32 next February and coming to the end of a remarkable career in which he has never been one to 'spare' himself.Put it another way, 'Batigol' is a player with a lot of miles left on the clock.

What a pity that he had not made this move earlier in his career. Surely, it is now just too late for him.The doubting Thomases appeared to have their worst fears confirmed when he developed a knee problem in July. Such negative thoughts, however, did not factor in his determined nature.

That knee problem - a badly bruised rotular tendon in his right knee - has not yet cleared up. He says that his knee 'hurts like hell from Tuesday to Thursday' and that for the time being, he is 'playing on one leg'.That notwithstanding, he currently leads the goal-scoring chart with nine goals from seven league games.

His value to the side was never more emphatically underlined than last Sunday night when Roma was in difficulty, shut out by a Fiorentina side determined to mend its thus-far profligate ways and play for a 0-0 draw. That is until the ball bounced in the direction of Batistuta. And he did what he nearly always does in such a situation - he scored his 161st Serie A goal.

As his team-mates descended on him, the big man wept tears of joy, relief and sadness. Joy because he has made it no secret that he came south to Roma to win the league title. Relief and sadness because, such are his fiercely loyal ties to the city and club where he spent the last nine years, this was a match he never wanted to play.

Prior to the game, he had asked the club for no less than 40 match tickets for friends who had come down from Florence. After the match he explained his sadness, saying: "I know only too well just how miserable the Fiorentina fans are when they travel back to Florence after a defeat."

Batistuta, however, also knows only too well the frustrations of Florence and Fiorentina. Over the years, club president Vittorio Cecchi Gori made him a series of empty promises.

Experienced and talented coaches such as Claudio Ranieri, Parma coach Alberto Malesani and Italy coach Giovanni Trapattoni came and went, their ideas and plans abandoned.

In the end, the promises were not maintained and a truly competitive Fiorentina never emerged.

At 31, 'Batigol' could wait no longer. At 31, rather than being finished, he is more hungry, more determined and more confident than ever. His initial impressions of Roma have been very positive, both from the point of view of the club's overall organisation and from the quality of his new team-mates.

One player in particular, Francesco Totti, merits a special mention.

He said: "Totti is phenomenal. He's a player who knows all about scoring goals, about how a team-mate wants the ball delivered, where and at what pace. For that reason, it's a huge advantage playing alongside Francesco."

With the Italian golden boy behind him, Marco Delvecchio or Vincenzo Montella beside him and with support from Brazilian Cafu on the right and Frenchman Vincent Candela on the left, Batistuta is now playing in arguably the strongest side of his Italian career.

Whether it is strong enough to win the 'scudetto' is another matter but what is sure is that, for now at least, Batistuta has proved the cynics wrong.

For Roma, for Serie A and for football generally, this is good news.

Players of Batistuta's class are few and far between. So let us enjoy it while it lasts.

Paddy Agnew
Reuters