Toni is a fine advertisement for a prevailing theory in sports science — the later you start an elite career, the greater your chances of making that career endure long into your 30s. Toni only made his debut in top-flight football at 23. The Verona centre-forward will celebrate his 38th birthday in May, and he is in vintage scoring form.
Veteran of Verona
Toni is in his second season with Verona, whom he joined after they achieved promotion to Serie A in the summer of 2013. They are his 13th different Italian club and, with a record of jumping around employers like his, the likelihood of his staying there beyond a season initially seemed small. But the marriage has worked. He is their captain and their towering target man, and he will lead them at Lazio tomorrow buoyed by his two goals in last weekend’s 2-0 win over third-placed Napoli. They were his sixth and seventh goals in his last six league games.
Gulf grumbles
Three years ago, Toni was in Dubai, in the middle of a six-month spell at Al Nasr that, on returning to Italy, he would look back on disgruntled. He told the Corriere della Sera that the Arabian Gulf League was “not true football”. He had left Juventus to come to the UAE, and he went on from there to Fiorentina, where he had been a great success from 2005 to 2007. Florence was home again for a season, and he struck eight Serie A goals in his 27 games.
Van the ban
Nasr is not the only one of his 15 clubs where he became dissatisfied. At the peak of his powers, the summer after he had finished his first Fiorentina season as Serie A’s top scorer, Toni joined Bayern Munich. He was 30. Initially, he thrived, but the arrival at Bayern of Louis van Gaal as coach would mean trouble. Van Gaal relegated Toni to the reserve team, they had a public falling out, and he left for Roma, on loan.
National hero
Toni may have flitted around, but at Palermo and Fiorentina, fans feel grateful to the past contributions of a prolific goalscorer. Verona are evidently enjoying the Toni goals that keep them in mid-table. For the national team, he has special status as the centre-forward when Italy won the 2006 World Cup. Italy coach Antonio Conte, his manager at Juventus in 2011, has paid compliments to his form. Might he be recalled after a five-year absence from the national team? “Conte hardly picked me when I was at Juve,” Toni said after his brace against Napoli, “so you can work that one out.”
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