Not every athlete can cope with his popularity and fame, which come to him along with his first successes in the sports field. Camera flashes, front pages of newspapers and magazines, crowds of admiring fans and loyal fans - only the strongest pass this test. Christian Vieri, the star of Italian football, has recently become increasingly the subject of close attention from the media, and not only because of his past successes on the football field.
The beginning of a football career
Christian's birthplace was Italian Bologna (1973), but later the family moved to Australia in search of a better life. His father, Roberto, having left his homeland, did not give up football and became a player in the Australian team from Sydney.
Christian Vieri studied at the Australian school "Prairiewood", he loved to play cricket and, of course, football. The craving for this sport, apparently, was transmitted at the genetic level. At the age of 14, a teenager makes the first adult decision in his life and returns to his homeland, where he stops with his grandfather. He set a very high bar for himself - Serie A of the Italian Championship and the national team, and began his journey to this goal.
The first football clubs
The first Italian club for a young football player was Marconi, where he spent several years. Then there were Torino, Pisa, Ravenna, Venice, where he repeatedly appeared in the main squads of Vieri. Christian, whose statistics improved with each match, sought to break into the top clubs playing in the Italian championship.
Juventus, which attracted a young promising striker, bought it from Atalanta, and their calculation was justified - 8 goals in the Italian championship and 10 goals in European cup tournaments.
Christian Vieri also played in the Spanish Championship for the Atlético team, where he scored 24 goals over 24 matches. In 1998, Vieri returned to his homeland and entered the field as part of the Roman “Lazio”.
Inter Milan
The peak of a football career can be considered his transition to Inter. Massimo Moratti personally became interested in the player and offered a huge transfer for the player - $ 32 million. The 32nd number on the t-shirt of the new striker, Inter, is rumored to have hinted at its true "price."
In a company with Ronaldo, they formed a menacing line in the attack, but together they played quite a bit - the players took turns injured. The first two seasons in the “Inter” (under the leadership of the Argentinean Hector Cooper) Bobo, as they call Christian in Italy, spent at the highest level. Christian Vieri, whose goals were remembered both in the Italian Championship and in European tournaments, could not get along with the new coach, who was appointed instead of Hector Cooper.
When the head coach of Inter was Alberto Zaccheroni, Vieri did not appear on the field often. In 2004, the Milan club changes its coach again - it becomes Roberto Mancini, and Christian Vieri in conjunction with Adriano holds several memorable matches.
Change of clubs
In 2005, Vieri did not renew the contract with the Milan club and transferred to Milan, which he also did not stay for long because of the lack of playing practice. The next club for Christian becomes the French “Monaco” - a football player wants to get an invitation to the Italian national team and play the third world championship in his career for the national team.
A knee injury that pursues a football player destroys these plans, and instead of the prestigious world championship, Christian Vieri appears on the operating table. And then there will be a modest “Sampdoria”, then the familiar “Atalanta” - we can say that the career of the striker went down. There were no longer such high salaries that Christian was used to, and injuries were increasingly reminiscent of themselves. As a result, in 2009, Christian Vieri made a statement about his retirement from big sport and the end of his career.
Business is no obstacle to football
The career of any athlete ends quickly enough, and the lifestyle that players get used to, getting huge fees for their game, becomes familiar to them. Some of them are very wise and start their own business during their professional careers.
Christian Vieri did just that - together with his friend Paolo Maldini, they invest the money they earned into developing their own fashion brand. For free advertising of their offspring, they wore a T-shirt with the logo of this company under a football uniform and, after a goal they scored, they lifted a T-shirt, showing all fans a stylized heart.
A couple of restaurants owned by friends also make it possible to live without looking for money. A few years ago, Christian Vieri filed a lawsuit against his club “Inter”, accusing the leadership of the team of meddling in privacy. And, strangely enough, he won this process, having seized the club 1 million dollars.
Christian Vieri, whose personal life has always been the subject of discussion both in the press and among fans, really enjoyed the attention of the female representatives. And more recently, 43-year-old Vieri announced that he might return to football, but it is unlikely that such statements can be taken seriously.