Reuters Soccer Blog

Overtaking Baggio could solve Inzaghi’s image problem

After bagging his 300th career goal last month, AC Milan’s Filippo Inzaghi has set his sights on Roberto Baggio’s tally of 318.

The 35-year-old hit a hat-trick in Sunday’s 5-1 thrashing of Torino in Serie A to take his total up to 304 and he looks good to achieve his target next season.

This got me wondering whether reaching a milestone set by a universally recognised great of the modern game will win over those still sceptical about Inzaghi’s talents.

Inzaghi’s goal feats often fail to receive the enthusiastic greeting they get in Italy outside his homeland, especially with British fans and journalists.

“English colleagues have often suggested that ‘SuperPippo’ was nothing more than a ‘poacher’ and a ‘six-yard merchant’, with a marked penchant for taking a ‘dive’ to boot,” Irish Times correspondent Paddy Agnew wrote in his book Forza Italia.

Agnew, who has covered Serie A since the 1980s, argues that Inzaghi is no more of a diver than his colleagues who have played in the Premier League “Saint Michael Owen, Ruud Van Nistelrooy or Wayne Rooney included”.

But the accusation that he is little more than a goal-hanger may be harder to shake off. His first goal of the 2007 Champions League final against Liverpool, which he deflected in with his arm, is seen by many as a typical Inzaghi effort.

Friday afternoon question: Should Giggs win PFA player of the year?

Ryan Giggs has probably never received the recognition he deserves for his contribution to Manchester United’s success over the last 15 years.

No other player has collected the full set of medals for all the silverware which has filled the Old Trafford trophy cabinet over that time. Yet several, including Eric Cantona, Roy Keane and Cristiano Ronaldo, have received the major individual awards which have eluded the man who has played more games for United than anyone else.

Giggs started in the first team as a 17-year-old winger famously likened by his manager Alex Ferguson to a “spaniel chasing a slip of paper in the wind”. Ferguson recently described Giggs as the ultimate professional whose burning desire to continue playing at the highest level at the age of 35 should make him a role model for all aspiring footballers.

Giggs has unsurprisingly lost the raw pace which, combined with his skills, used to leave defenders with what his manager called “twisted blood”. But he more than compensates now with a vast experience which allows him to play in a variety of positions.

Ferguson played Giggs as a holding central midfielder in the recent Premier League win over Chelsea and he was used as a striker in Sunday’s FA Cup victory over Derby County. Typically, the Welshman gave a masterclass of passing and clever touches which created three goals and prompted more calls for him to be named England’s Footballer of the Year.

From exuberant spaniel to top dog. That would be a fitting reward for one of British football’s most popular and enduring players.

Stat anoraks in a frenzy over Van der Sar

The anoraks have had to dig deeper and deeper into their stat books to deny Manchester United’s Edwin van der Sar another goalkeeping record.

His side’s 3-0 win over a toothless Fulham at Old Trafford on Wednesday took the 38-year-old Dutchman’s unbeaten league run to 14 successive games and an astonishing 1,302 minutes.

Some sources had suggested that he would claim the European record for league clean sheets if he kept Fulham out for an hour.

That hope was dashed before the kickoff however when the number crunchers revealed that the mark apparently belongs to Club Bruges goalkeeper Dany Verlinden, who went 1,390 minutes unbeaten in Belgium in 1990, rather than the mere 1,275 minutes of Atletico Madrid keeper Abel Resino.

According to the United website, their man will now have to keep Blackburn Rovers at bay for another 89 minutes at Old Trafford on Saturday before claiming the outright record.

But even that won’t be close to what has so far emerged as the world best.

According to Opta stats on the Daily Telegraph website, Brazilian Mazaropi went 1,816 minutes unbeaten between May 1977 and Sept 1978 for Vasco da Gama.

Time for Ronaldo to retire?

When you manage just 22 minutes in a charity friendly, it is usually a bad sign.

Brazilian Ronaldo was huffing and puffing after his short cameo in Morocco on Monday against a Zinedine Zidane XI and now he is seriously considering retirement.

“I don’t know if I will continue playing or retire. I still haven’t taken a decision,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport. “There is no rush. I could decide tomorrow or in a month. I really don’t know.”

The friendly was his comeback after a stop-start recovery from a second serious knee injury, which he sustained playing for AC Milan in February.

Even before he collapsed to the ground in agony, it was clear he was never going to come close to recapturing the sparkling form he showed at Barcelona, Inter Milan and occasionally Real Madrid.

Weight problems, injuries and question marks over his motivation have heralded the fall from grace. Milan’s PR machine was very clever in not making any public comment, and therefore not looking heartless, when they allowed his contract to run out in June with the world hardly taking notice.

Without a club, Ronaldo has turned down a solitary offer from midtable Serie A side Siena. Manchester City and Flemengo have been mentioned in the media as possible destinations but there seems little movement.

Del Piero…34 years young

Italy coach Marcello Lippi doesn’t want him, his predecessor Roberto Donadoni wasn’t keen, but Juventus striker Alessandro Del Piero just keeps on coming up with the goods.

Few visiting players get standing ovations at the Bernabeu, but Il Capitano deserved it after two sublime strikes in Juve’s shock 2-0 win over Real Madrid on Wednesday which sent the in-form Turin club to the Champions League last 16.

Del Piero had already outshone that other great talisman Raul by scoring another beauty in Juve’s 2-1 home win over Real two weeks ago.

He is surely in the best form of his long and successful career, which kicked off when he played in Juve’s 1996 Champions League-winning side.

He is undoubtedly the most famous Italian still playing the game and yet he has only ever been a bit part player for Italy, playing as a substitute for most of their triumphant 2006 World Cup campaign and sneaking into the Euro 2008 squad after finishing top of the Serie A scoring charts last term.

Lippi has said he wants to look at other players during Italy’s 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign, but where will he find better than Ale?

Wednesday’s glorious free kick past Iker Casillas followed another deadball special in last weekend’s 2-0 win over AS Roma.

Time to revamp player awards

This week we had the nominations for FIFA world player of the year, discovered the winner of the FIFPro world player of the year and mulled the contenders for the Ballon d’Or.

Exactly how many gongs do we need? In the recent past the situation was a bit clearer.

The Ballon d’Or was originally just for Europeans (hence the foreign language-challenged English calling it the European player of the year). In 1995 magazine France Football, which runs the award, decided any player playing in Europe could win it and since 2007 any footballer in the world is eligible (although it will surely be rare for a player not playing with a European side to win). (more…)

What would a great goal be worth on the art market?

Having seen replays of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s remarkable backheel goal for Inter Milan on Saturday, I reckon it’s one of those rare moments when football reaches the realm of art.

I realise you risk sounding like a wally by comparing something frivolous like football to such a serious business. (more…)

Why is Bruce Springsteen playing for Italy? Euro 2008 lookalikes

Wow, Donald Sutherland seems very upset by that penalty decision!      

A lot of people in football look like a lot of other people but more people in Euro 2008 seem to have doubles than in any other tournament.     

It’s well known by now of course that Portugal and soon to be Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe Scolari is the spitting image of Hollywood actor Gene Hackman. 

But has anyone else noticed the incredible similarity between Italian striker Alessandro Del Piero and rock legend Bruce Springsteen. I went to see Springsteen at the Emirates stadium the other week and when he did his knee slides I thought I was watching Del Piero celebrating a goal against Arsenal.      

George Clooney has been in goal for Greece here, or rather George Clooney-alike Antonios Nikopolidis while Donald Sutherland has temporarily left his role in the TV series Dirty Sexy Money to coach the Polish team, or was that Leo Beenhakker complaining about Howard Webb’s refereeing decisions?      

Fatih Terim, the dashing Turkish coach could, I reckon, walk into Hollywood passing himself off as either Robert de Niro’s older brother, or Joe Pesci’s taller brother. And while we are with the Turks Nihat Kahveci is a dead ringer for Mads Mikkelsen, who played the villain Le Chiffre in the latest 007 movie Casino Royale.

All-time Euro XI: anyone here who could make it?

Now we’ve seen all 16 teams in action at Euro 2008, here’s a question for you. Could anyone here play their way into the All-time Greats XI?

I first saw a match in the European Nations Cup, as it then was, in 1968 when England beat Spain 1-0 in a qualifier at Wembley to reach the four-team finals in Italy.

Strange to think that at the time, England were the world champions and Spain were the European Champions — and neither country has won anything since. Anyway, as we all like a good argument, here is my selection for the All-time Greats XI.

(The only qualification was that the player was on the winning team in the final)

GOALKEEPER:

PETER SCHMEICHEL (Denmark 1992) Had the game of his life in the final against Germany making three world class saves and securing himself a move to Manchester United and a place in English soccer folklore.

DEFENDERS: