Serie A legend Batistuta not enjoying ‘football that gave results to Guardiola’

Serie A legend Gabriel Omar Batistuta admits he doesn’t enjoy watching football games these days and notes that centre-forwards like him or Christian Vieri ‘no longer exist.’

Former Fiorentina, Roma and Inter striker Gabriel Omar Batistuta shared his view on today’s football in an interview with TyC Sports in Argentina.

“Football is evolving. A No.9 like Batistuta or Vieri no longer exists,” said the ex-Argentina international, scorer of 183 goals in 318 matches in Serie A.

“Strikers who would stay there and dominate the box one way or another, who justified wearing the shirt by staying inside the box and making the most of every centimetre. Now it’s different; they go everywhere, they move a lot. This is today’s football, but this is not what bores me. Other things discourage me from following it.

“Right today, I was talking about this with Bora Milutinović,” Batistuta continued.

“Everyone has a similar playing style; they build up with the goalkeeper, make 20 touches next to the box, with the rival pressing, and then at some point they kick the ball forward and could have done it before, and this pushed the striker away from the danger zone.

“But well, this is today’s football, the football that gave results to Guardiola, and given that we’re human and we try to follow the formula of success, this seems to be the one that makes you win a game, but I don’t agree with it much.”

Batistuta won the Serie A title at Roma in 2000-01 and participated in the World Cups, 1994, 1998 and 2002, with the Argentina national team, scoring 10 goals in 12 appearances in the competition.

The Argentine also won one Coppa Italia with Fiorentina in 1995-96 and two Supercoppa Italiana, one with the Tuscans and one with Roma.

The former striker is also the second-best scorer in Argentina’s history with 54 goals in 78 international games; only Lionel Messi has more with 115 goals in 196 appearances with his national team.

Batistuta retired in 2005 after spending the last two seasons of his career at Al-Arabi.