[Jack Sparrow]

Grande Pippo....greatest poacher in the world.

[Portman]

Auguri Pippo! (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

[Rossoneri7]

Seems just like yesterday .. I still feel the shiver down my spine when he scored this goal !!! That was a very difficult match indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5xvRfxDKbY

And can I forget this match ... Will remain in my memory forever !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuBCrO9hO3w

This post has been edited by Rossoneri7: Aug 29 2007, 01:07 AM

[Tennie]

Forza Pippo! (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/king.gif)

Italy relying on 'immortal' Inzaghi
/ Associated Press
Posted: 1 hour ago

AC Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti calls Filippo Inzaghi "immortal."

With Luca Toni injured and Francesco Totti retired from international play at the ripe old age of 30, Inzaghi is expected to lead Italy's attack against France on Saturday in European Championship qualifying.

At 34 - an age when other forwards can retire - Inzaghi is still beating the offside trap and darting past defenders 10 years his junior.

He scored both goals when Milan defeated Liverpool 2-1 in May to win the Champions League and got the equalizer last week as Milan went on to beat Sevilla 3-1 in the European Super Cup.

"It's true," Inzaghi said. "I'm 34 but it's actually now that I'm reaping in the biggest satisfactions and debunking the myth which says a forward at this age isn't productive anymore."

Inzaghi has no intention to stop.

"When I hear the national anthem it makes me shiver," Inzaghi said. "I would never know how to say no to the national team. I think it would be better if (the team or federation) stopped me."

The last time Inzaghi appeared for Italy at Milan's San Siro stadium - the site of Saturday's game and the same arena where he plays for his club - he scored a hat trick in a 4-0 win over Wales. That win came when Italy was struggling to qualify for the 2004 European Championship.

Italy is not struggling this time around - having won five straight qualifiers - but the Azzurri do need a win to avoid complications in its final four qualifiers for Euro 2008.

France leads Group B with 18 points. Italy is next with 16 points, followed by Scotland with 15 and Ukraine - Italy's opponent four days after the France match - with 12.

"You can be sure the impact of San Siro will be felt," Inzaghi said. "I know how much the fans can count for."

Inzaghi has scored 25 goals in 56 appearances for Italy and 59 in European club play with Milan, third all time behind Gerd Mueller (69) and Andriy Shevchenko (60).

Inzaghi thrives in big pressure situations, while his 25-year-old teammate at Milan, Alberto Gilardino, appears to struggle.

Gilardino, out of form, wasn't called up by Italy coach Roberto Donadoni.

"It's a psychological problem with Gilardino," Donadoni said.

Inzaghi was hesitant to speak about Gilardino.

"Leave him in peace," he said. "He's the future of Italian soccer, the next 10 years of Italian soccer. You'll see."

link

This post has been edited by Tennie: Sep 7 2007, 01:11 PM

[dst]

"Leave him in peace," he said. "He's the future of Italian soccer, the next 10 years of Italian soccer. You'll see."

If Pippo has a quality that separates him from the rest, that's predictiveness/vision! Indeed, let's see... (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

This post has been edited by dst: Sep 7 2007, 01:20 PM

[Jack Sparrow]

To tell you the truth this is the main reason I don't want him to leave. I know if Gila leaves, he's gonna strike gold somewhere and we'd be left with sh!t in our face. Something about this guy, that just tells me to be patient, there's something there underneath the surface waiting to explode.

And before dst starts, it's not the rum, it's the instinct. The same one that said, we'd win the CL (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by Jack Sparrow: Sep 7 2007, 06:03 PM

[Rossoneri7]

"You can be sure the impact of San Siro will be felt," Inzaghi said. "I know how much the fans can count for."

Grande Pippo (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/king.gif) This is ur stadium !

[misha]

Inzaghi: Don’t Retire Number Nine Shirt

Milan striker Filippo Inzaghi has insisted that his number nine shirt should not be retired when he finally decides to hang up his boots.

The ex-Juventus man is one of the most prolific goalscorers of all time and only German legend Gerd Muller has scored more goals in European competition than Inzaghi. 

Superpippo was once again on target during Tuesday’s 2-1 Champions League victory over Benfica and his heroics since joining Milan in 2001 have led to many Rossoneri supporters calling for his number nine shirt to be retired once Inzaghi ends his career. 

“The number nine shirt cannot be withdrawn once I finish,” Inzaghi said modestly. “This honour was not granted to the great Marco Van Basten who also wore the number nine shirt so it cannot be expected to be granted to me.” 

Current Dutch national Coach Van Basten played for Milan between 1987 and 1993 and scored a stunning 128 goals in 147 appearances for the Rossoneri. 

Inzaghi is someway behind that total but his two match-winning goals in the Champions League final victory over Liverpool last May has sewn his status as a Milan legend. When the 34-year-old does finally retire, he will be remembered as one of the greatest goalscorers Italy has ever produced

They wasn't going to, but it's nice for him to say that.

[dst]

Of course it shouldn't happen!

[Fillipo Simone]

It's like the number 10, it allways passes on from generation to generation. But we do remember all the great names from past times. So Pippo won't be forgotten..

[Rossoneri7]

It's like the number 10, it allways passes on from generation to generation. But we do remember all the great names from past times. So Pippo won't be forgotten..

Never will he be forgotten ... He is the saviour of Athena (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[misha]

With all the amazing players we had over the years, to have your name retired you have to be truly unique. Franco and Paolo are of course fall into this category and set the bar very high.

[Tennie]

A nice piece by Gabriele Marcotti in yesterday's Sunday Herald (link)

People's Poacher

FLASHBACK TO Athens and the Champions League final last May. AC Milan have just won their eighth European crown and Pippo Inzaghi is the man of the hour, having scored both goals in the final. Most of the players have retreated to the centre circle to celebrate.

Inzaghi lingers by himself in the penalty box. He spots Massimo Ambrosini jogging back up the pitch with the match ball and waves his arms frantically. Ambrosini hits a 30-yard pass in Inzaghi's direction. Super Pippo takes off, limbs pumping furiously. Nobody is near him, no opponents, no team-mates and, of course, no goalkeeper. He meets the ball just outside the six yard box and sidefoots it just past the far post. Ambrosini shakes his head.

After the game, the midfielder would say of Inzaghi's post-final whistle miss: "I don't know what's more unusual. The fact that he insisted on trying to shoot the ball into an empty goal from five metres out or the fact that he missed. But that's Pippo."

Indeed, the above anecdote sums up both sides of the Inzaghi coin. The visceral need to score, even at the most absurd times - like, say, minutes after winning the biggest prize in club football - and the capacity for spectacular misses.

Which, in some ways, is rather unfair. The Milan striker, who visits Celtic Park on Wednesday, is something of a contradiction. He's neither physically strong nor particularly technically gifted. His one physical gift - quickness - tends to stand out, but largely because the other facets of his athletic ability are so pedestrian.

Indeed, Inzaghi is not especially fast either. When the club did their pre-season fitness tests, he turned out to be slower over 40 metres than all but one other striker or defender, including 39-year-old Paolo Maldini, 36-year-old Serginho and 37-year-old Cafu.

And that may explain why some of the finest minds in the game have consistently rubbished his contributions. Sir Alex Ferguson famously said that "he was born offside". Johan Cruyff went even further: "Look, the thing about Inzaghi is that he can't actually play football at all. He is just always in the right position."

If that's the case, then perhaps no player in the history of the game has maximised his limited skills as well as Inzaghi. Just look at the numbers.

No current player has scored more goals in European club competition than Inzaghi. Indeed, he needs another nine to join Gerd Muller at the top of the all-time list. He has tallied more than 200 goals in Serie A, Coppa Italia and European competition and it's safe to say this total would be higher if he had not been slowed by injuries over the past four seasons - since 2003 he averaged a paltry 14 Serie A starts a year for Milan. He has 25 goals and 57 caps for Italy, despite being part of a golden generation of Italian strikers which includes the likes of Christian Vieri, Francesco Totti and Alessandro Del Piero.

And yet when you watch him play, especially in person, something doesn't look quite right. Part of it is his build. Thin and spindly, with limbs that seemingly move independently of the rest of his body, he just doesn't look like a modern professional footballer. He looks more like the runt of the litter.

His movements on the pitch reflect this. Where great players make difficult things look easy, he does the opposite. His actions are exaggerated and, often uncoordinated, as if he just barely manages to keep things together. Not coincidentally, the commentator for Milan Channel - the club's official TV station - who has a nickname for each player, calls him "High Anxiety", after the Mel Brooks film.

He looks like a hyperactive 12-year-old who hasn't taken his Ritalin. While he has mellowed compared to years past - thanks, in part, to yoga - he remains a bundle of nervous energy.

For a long-time, Inzaghi was under-appreciated in Italy and, in many ways, he still is. When he joined Juventus in 1997 to team up with Del Piero and Zinedine Zidane in a memorable front three, many saw it as heresy, like forcing Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to perform with a pimply teenager who just got his guitar out of the box. Yet, 87 goals in all competitions in four years tell their own story.

Still, when Juventus signed David Trezeguet in 2000, it became clear that Inzaghi, for all his goals, was surplus to requirement. Thus came his move to Milan, a shift greeted with scepticism at first. Again, he did not seem to fit the Rossoneri brand and the fact he came from Juventus meant he had to win over the fans. He promptly did, especially in his second year, when he notched 30 goals in all competitions and was the Champions League top scorer.

He still doesn't really fit into Milan's ethos and their silky, short-passing game which demands technique, creativity and selflessness. Inzaghi's selflessness manifests itself in his continuous, and often thankless, runs into space - the problem, as one Serie A commentator put it, is that: "Inzaghi may work hard to get open, but, when he does, you know if you give him the ball, you won't get it back: he'll either score, blast it into the stands or lose it."

But then, you always return to the numbers. Not only does he score often, he scores in big matches. Perhaps the people we should be celebrating are guys like him, rather than the Kakas and Ronaldinhos of this world. As great as those guys are, they were born with tremendous athletic and technical gifts. Inzaghi wasn't. He is one of us, the masses who are neither fast, nor strong, nor skillful nor athletic. His success comes through hard work and the ability to learn where the ball is going to be and to make sure he's there to meet it.

The father of a young footballer most likely can't, in good conscience, tell him one day he'll grow up to be like Ronaldinho. But he can tell him that, with enough character, workrate and single-mindedness, one day he can be like Inzaghi. Which is no bad thing.

[agenth]

isnt this article full of mistakes, first 8th European Crown? and 9 goals from Gerd Müller's record? I thought only 2 along with Sheva?!?!

[Tennie]

Yikes. You're right, Hanna. Marcotti is one of the better english-language calcio guys. He doesn't usually make big mistakes like this.