Cristiano Lucarelli

Many look at him as the new Christian Vieri but Cristiano Lucarelli still has a long way to go. Like the more famous Vieri he scored many goals in Serie B (29 goals in two seasons) before arriving to Atalanta (serie A) in search of the final explosion that Vieri achieved playing for Juventus and Atletico Madrid. Serie A is proving to be so hard for him, that he is not even sure anymore to be a starter. He is very powerful both with his feet and with his head. He is the typical "tower" who gets the long passes from the back lines, and keeps the ball allowing the team to gain ground. He is brave, and posseses an exuberant physique which however needs to be always perfectly trained to produce its best. Another name, weighs heavily on him, though: Filippo Inzaghi, the top scorer in the last year italian league. Inzaghi scored 24 goals before being traded to Juventus, to replace Christian Vieri.

Cristiano Lucarelli has always scored lots of goals as well: 5 when he was just a teen-ager and played for Cuoio Pelli; 60 in two seasons for Perugia ( primavera team, under 18); 15 in his first serie B season with Cosenza; and 14 last year with Padova. Lucarelli, in short, feels the goal, but needs to sacrifice himself more for the team.

His notoriety, however, is mainly the result of the 10 goals he scored by playing for the under 21 italian national team, in the preliminary heats of the European Championship (he even scored 2 hat tricks). After one of these games, which was played in Livorno ( his hometown), he took away his national team jersey to show a t-shirt received before the game from the fans of his city. Nothing wrong but the fact that in the middle of the t-shirt standed out the image of Che Guevara.

Many people gave this episode a political meaning, but he claimed he didn't even realize there was that image on it. He just wanted to give a sign of affection to his fans, one of whom founded ( a couple of years ago ) an internet club dedicated to him. As it seems Cristiano's destiny has always to do with the "net".