With a further day of reflection behind me one player's face keeps returning to haunt my reverie, Inzaghi. The thoughts are accompanied by annoyance. A player that scores two against a team you want to win is not usually one on the path to adulation. I was also transported back to 2003.
It was a beautiful late summer evening in Milan. Wales were on the verge of qualifying for something after years of trying, the mood was hopeful. For an hour all was rosy, we were on our way to the European Championship!! The mood bordered on euphoria, men in kilts were high-fiving. Then he struck three times and our dreams were on hold. His contorted visage at the corner flag on Wednesday brought back the trauma of that September evening all too readily. Inzaghi puts the wind up me because he's so prolific yet seems so unco-ordinated.
After he'd scored his second goal on Wednesday the commentator announced that he was second in the "all-time" scoring list for the Champions League. In order to reach that point he was claiming the first goal. This looked a tenuous claim due to the fact that Pirlo's shot had deflected into the net off his arm, although the second was a good finish. The bastard even had the gall to claim that his first "goal" wasn't lucky, even though his tracjectory was different from the ball's original one. Their paths only crossed for a brief, but all too painful, time.
The fact that he is now high up in the scoring list mean that he could be classified as a great striker. What nags about this is the issue of whether he is that good. As a seasoned and cultured football viewer I seem to recall that many of his goals in the European Cup were tap-ins from a yard out and several were mishits. Some were good strikes but the majority weren't, just like the Wales match. The main thing that amazed me about his goalscoring expolits was that an offside postion seemed to be his usual habitat.
On the other hand he's no Lee Hunt so I won't waste any more negative energy upon him. Inzaghi is just painful memory, nothing more.
Inzaghi haunts me
