Gabriel Batistuta

Gabriel Omar Batistuta (born 1 February 1969), nicknamed Batigol as well as El Ángel Gabriel (Spanish for Angel Gabriel), is a retired professional footballer. The prolific Argentine striker played most of his club football at Fiorentina in Italy, and is the eleventh top scorer of all-time in the Italian Serie A league, with 184 goals in 318 matches.

At international level, he is Argentina's all-time leading goalscorer, with 56 goals in 78 matches, and he played at three World Cups. In 1999, Batistuta was third in the FIFA World Player of the Year awards. In 2004 he was named in the FIFA 100 list of the Top 125 greatest living footballers. With an all-round game with clinical finishing, heading and free-kick taking abilities, he is known as one of the most complete strikers of his generation. Diego Maradona stated that Batistuta is the best striker he has ever seen play the game.

When his club Fiorentina was relegated to Serie B in 1993, Batistuta stayed with the club and helped it return to the top-flight league a year later. A popular sporting figure in Florence, the Fiorentina fans erected a life-size bronze statue of him in 1996, in recognition of his performances for Fiorentina. He never won the Italian league with Fiorentina, but when he moved to Roma in 2000, he finally won the Serie A title to crown his career in Italy. He played his last season in Qatar with Al-Arabi before he retired in 2005.

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