Filippo Inzaghi

Filippo "Pippo" Inzaghi (born August 9, 1973, in Piacenza, Italy) is a professional footballer who plays as a centre forward. He is the brother of Simone Inzaghi, who is also a professional footballer. He has played for several clubs in Italy, currently playing for Italian Serie A giants AC Milan, and has previously been selected to play on the Italian national team in various international matches and tournaments, including the World Cup in 1998, 2002, and was also in the squad for the 2006 World Cup, in which he scored one goal in the group stages, as the Italians were crowned World Champions.

Playing style

Inzaghi is a proven scorer who relies primarily on good positional awareness and superior reactions to score his goals. Articles written about him throughout his career were rarely without a description of him as a specialist inside the penalty box.

Indeed, on the day of Milan's second leg quarter-final match against Lyon on April 4, 2006, a match which featured two typically sneaky strikes by the 32-year-old Inzaghi, nearly all of the articles preceding and following the match made note of Inzaghi's status as one of football's premier scorers of opportunistic goals, with the forward being called variously a "master poacher" and an "arch-predator" by sports writers covering the match.

Paolo Rossi, the hero of Italy's 1982 World Cup triumph and himself a celebrated penalty-box predator had this to say about Inzaghi in the October 2005 issue of FourFourTwo magazine: "is the forward who is most similar to me. Sometimes you don't see him for a full match, but when you are least expecting it, he changes the game. He is always focused and even if he is not the strongest attacking player, he knows where to lurk in the penalty area."

Inzaghi has been criticized for being a diver, i.e. a player that fakes fouls in order to gain penalties or free kicks. Also, commentators often say, "That's not the first time Pippo will be offside," implying his inability to time his runs towards the goal.

Biography

Club

Inzaghi got his start playing for hometown club Piacenza F.C. as a teenager, in the 1991-92 he appeared twice before going on loan to Leffe; while on loan he scored an impressive 13 goals in 21 games for the Serie C1 club.

The following season saw the player move to Hellas Verona, collecting a further 13 goals in 36 games, this time in Serie B, he soon returned to his first club Piacenza F.C. however, adding 15 goals in 37 games for the club, proving himself as an exciting young prospect.

Inzaghi stepped up to the top league the following year, with a move to Parma A.C.; though he would only appear for the club 15 times, getting 2 goals. In 1997, fully burst onto the Serie A scene, Atalanta Inzaghi was the seasons top scorer in the Italian Serie A with 24 goals, he was awarded young player of the year.

A big move was on the cards for the Italian, a move to the infamous Lippi era Juventus came. Along with Alessandro Del Piero, the two formed a formidable attacking partnership together which would last for four seasons, terrorising Serie A defenses. The team won the scudetto in the 1997-98 season and narrowly lost in the UEFA Champions League final the same year.

In total Inzaghi scored 57 in 120 games for the Old Lady, but moved to A.C. Milan after falling out of favour at Juve to David Trezeguet. He suffered a knee injury and was out for half of his first season at A.C. Milan, but when he returned, carried on where he left off with his scoring, forging a strong goalscoring partnership with Ukraine legend Andriy Shevchenko.

At A.C. Milan Inzaghi became the all time top Italian goalscorer in European competition history, beating the previous record of 39 goals held by Alessandro Altobelli. While he has been at the club, A.C. Milan have won, the Scudetto (2003-04), the European Cup (2002-03), Italian Super Cup (2004), the European Super Cup (2003) and the Coppa Italia (2002-03). They also reached the European Cup final in 2004-05 but lost out. Inzaghi remains at the club currently.

National

"Pippo" made his debut for Italy against Brazil on June 8 1997, and has since scored 22 goals in 50 appearances for his country, becoming the national side's 10th all time top goalscorer.

Inzaghi played in the following competitions: 1998 FIFA World Cup, (scoring against Turkey and Romania), and the 2002 FIFA World Cup. However, he was left out of the Italian squad for Euro 2004 in favour of Bernardo Corradi, Alessandro Del Piero, Marco Di Vaio, Francesco Totti, and Christian Vieri.

The 2006 FIFA World Cup saw Inzaghi's return to football competitions for Italy, after Christian Vieri was unable to make the team due to injury. Inzaghi scored against Czech Republic after coming on as a substitute; Italy went on to be crowned World Champions, though Inzaghi played no further part in the tournament.

Career

up to the 2004 - 2005 Season

Season	Team	League	Domestic League *1		European Tournament *2		Total
Season	Team	League	Appearance	Goals	Appearance	Goals	Appearance	Goals
1991-92	Piacenza	Serie B	2	0	-	-	2	0
1992-93	Leffe	Serie C1	21	13	-	-	21	13
1993-94	Verona	Serie B	36	13	-	-	36	13
1994-95	Piacenza	Serie B	37	15	-	-	37	15
1995-96	Parma	Serie A	15	2	6	2	21	4
1996-97	Atalanta	Serie A	33	24	6	0	39	24
1997-98	Juventus	Serie A	31	18	10	6	41	24
1998-99	Juventus	Serie A	28	13	10	6	38	19
1999-00	Juventus	Serie A	33	15	8	10	41	25
2000-01	Juventus	Serie A	28	11	6	5	34	16
2001-02	A.C. Milan	Serie A	20	10	7	4	27	14
2002-03	A.C. Milan	Serie A	30	17	16	12	46	29
2003-04	A.C. Milan	Serie A	14	3	8	2	22	5
2004-05	A.C. Milan	Serie A	11	0	0	1	13	1
2005-06	A.C. Milan	Serie A	22	12	5	4	27	16
Total			361	166	78	52	439	218

1: Did not include Coppa Italia or Italian Super Cup
2: Did not include European Super Cup

Trivia

His supporters have affectionately nicknamed him Superpippo or Superpippo Inzagol during his best years; Superpippo is the Italian name of Disney character Super Goof.

Dutch coach Johann Cruyff has said of Inzaghi "Look, actually he can't play football at all. He's just always in the right position."

External links

FootballDatabase provides Filippo Inzaghi's profile and stats
"Master Poacher Inzaghi to Start" Electric New Paper, 4 April 2006 accessed 4 April 2006