Christian Vieri

Christian Vieri is a former Italian international football player who currently features for the Italian Serie A club Atalanta. He plays as a striker and was named by Pele in March 2004 as one of the 125 greatest living footballers.

Christian Vieri commenced his professional club football at Italian Serie C1 side AC Prato in 1989. He was signed by Torino and featured in the Italian Serie A for the Turin side in 1990. In November 1992 Vieri was signed by Serie B club Pisa Calcio. After subsequently featuring for Ravenna, Venezia and Atalanta, he landed at Juventus in the 1996-1997 season. He scored 8 goals in 23 Italian Seria A matches and scored six goals in ten matches in Europe. He was the joint topscorer for Juventus that season along with Alen Boksic.

Christian Vieri was then signed by Spanish club Atetico Madrid and scored 24 goals in 24 league matches for Atleti and won the Pichichi trophy that season. In 1998 he moved to Italian side Lazio and won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in his first season. But he then moved to Italian powerhouse Inter Milan for a then world record fee.

Christian Vieri became a legend at Inter and partnered the great Brazilian striker Ronaldo in attack. He was hugely impressive in his first couple of seasons at Inter and finished as the top scorer in the Serie A with 23 goals in only 24 league appearances in the 2002-2003 season. He formed a clinical partnership with Argentine striker Hernan Crespo.

But things soon took a turn for the worse and in July 2005 Inter Milan and Christian Vieri decided to come to a mutual agreement to terminate the player's contract with the club. He was immediately signed by AC Milan but left them after only six months to join French side AS Monaco.

In July of 2006 Vieri was signed by Sampdoria in the Italian Serie A on a one-year contract but in August he returned to Atalanta on a one-yar minimum wage contract worth 1500 euro per month with an perk of 100,000 euros for every goal he scorer. In the summer of 2007 Vieri was signed by Fiorentina on a one-year contract. In the summer of 2008 he signed for Atalanta again on a one-year contract.

Christian Vieri mad his international debut for Italy in 1997 and played 49 international matches for his nation, scoring 23 goals. He featured at the 1998 World Cup finals and scored five times. He also played in the 2002 World Cup finals and scored four goals. He missed Euro 2000 and the 2006 World Cup finals due to injury but did play in Euro 2004. His 9 goals in the 1998 and 2002 World Cup finals make him the joint top scorer of all time for Italy in World Cups with Paolo Rossi and Roberto Baggio.