The Ever Controversial Ones #2 Pippo Inzaghi

By: Rob | April 12th, 2008

Pippo celebrates his winning goals After everyone spent days arguing about my last submission Frank Lampard, today seemed an appopriate day to add another controversial football to my list. Today, because in what the Juve offside are calling The Real Derby D’Italia, Super Pippo’s (as he is affectionatly known by fans) current and former club come up against each other. So is Inzaghi an incredible natural goalscorer? Or a lucky chancer?

“Look, he can’t play football at all, he just knows how to get in the right place” - Johan Cruyff

Filippo (as he still is to his mum) Inzaghi was born August 9th 1973. He loved his hometown club Piancenzo Calcio, who were the first to take a chance on him. He proved himself an exciting enough talent - 15 goals in 37 appearances - to warrent a move to Serie A in 1995 at Parma. The team didn’t work with Inzaghi, and he only managed two goals in his soliatry season there. He quickly moved on to Atalanta. Incredibly, he was Serie A’s top scorer at Atlanta, getting an impressive 24 goals. Already it was clear that in the right system, Pippo would get goals.

He was quickly grabbed by Juventus, who built thier attacking threat around him. With Zidane in attacking midfield and Alex Del Piero playing the trequartista the attacking trio bagged alot of goals on the way to Inzaghi’s first scudetto. They also made it to the Champions League final, losing to Zidane’s future employers, Real Madrid, 1-0.

Despite the sucsess of this attacking trimverate, Juve bought in David Trezeguet to challenge for places in 2000. Despite practically a 1 in 2 goalscoring record, Juve felt that Trezegol offered more to the side, and thus, Inzaghi was benched. He soon moved onto AC Milan.

At Milan, injuries hampered him. Almost immediately upon his return though, he clicked into a frightning strike partnership with Shevchencko, a partnership that would bring the side Inzaghi’s first Champions League medal in 2003.

Apparently upset that he (or anybody else) hadn’t managed to score in the Champions League final, Inzaghi managed to set the record straight with two goals against Liverpool in Athens in the 2007 final. A rematch of the famous 2005 night, Inzaghi described the goals as “the most important of my life”

He is of course, the record goalscorer in European competetion, this season overtaking Gerd Muller’s longstanding record. He also has an impressive 25 goals in 57 appearances for his country, and a world cup medal to boot - scoring in his only appearance in the 2006 finals.

Another record he may be less proud of, is the fact that he has been flagged offside more than any other player in Serie A history. Alluding to this, Sir Alex Ferguson once quipped “Pippo was born in an offside position”

So where do you guys stand on Inzaghi. One one hand he is a goalscorer. HIs record is good (if not astonishing) and he has been an integral part of teams that have won sackfuls of medals down the years. He has won pretty much all there has been for him to win, Scudetto’s, Champions Leagues, Coppa Italias and World Cups.

On the other hand, he is just a goalscorer. If the team isn’t preforming around him, or even is designed around him, he struggles. He’s not the sort of player to score spectacular goals, or even take his man on. He plays on the last shoulder of the defence and is constantly offside. Give him the ball in the six yard box - much like Gerd Muller, or even Gary Lineker - and he is likely to score. He still has aspirations for his country - he is currently talking up the idea that he could be one of the experienced faces at the Olympics - and was used in a recent friendly when Luca Toni was injured.

Is he a great player? A world class player? Does he have the right to go down in history? Or has he been merely lucky to play in sides with great players like Del Piero, Zidane and Sheva?

Over to you.