Gabriel Batistuta

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Batistuta began his career in Argentina in 1988 with Newell's Old Boys, followed by River Plate and Boca Juniors where he won titles. He played most of his club football with Serie A club Fiorentina in Italy; he is their all-time top scorer in Serie A with 151 goals. When Fiorentina was relegated to Serie B in 1993, Batistuta stayed with the club and helped them return to the top-flight league a year later. He became an icon in Florence; the Fiorentina fans erected a life-size bronze statue of him in 1996, in recognition of his performances for the club. Despite winning the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana with the club in 1996, he never won the Serie A title with Fiorentina, but when he moved to Roma in 2000 for €36 million – the highest fee ever paid for a player over the age of 30 until Cristiano Ronaldo moved from Real Madrid to Juventus in 2018 – he won the 2000–01 Serie A title. After a brief loan spell with Inter Milan in 2003, he played his last two seasons in Qatar with Al-Arabi before he retired in 2005. At international level, Batistuta was Argentina's all-time leading goalscorer with 56 goals in 78 official matches, a record he held until 21 June 2016, when he was surpassed by Lionel Messi. He participated in three FIFA World Cups, scoring 10 goals, making him Argentina's second top scorer in the competition after Messi, and the joint tenth-highest World Cup goalscorer of all time. Batistuta is the only player in football history to score two hat-tricks in different World Cups. With the Argentina national team he won two consecutive Copa América titles (1991 and 1993), the 1993 CONMEBOL–UEFA Cup of Champions, and the 1992 FIFA Confederations Cup.

In Their Own Story

In mid-1989, Batistuta made the leap to one of Argentina's biggest clubs, River Plate, where he scored 4 goals and River Plate won the Argentine Primera División in 1990. However, he was drawn out of the team by the new manager Daniel Passarella in the mid-season, apparently with no specific reason. According to Batistuta, they never had a dispute. Passarella declared at that time "when Batistuta finds a team that be able to play to him he will be lethal" and highlighted his professionalism. In 1990, Batistuta joined River Plate's arch rivals, Boca Juniors. He initially found it hard to find his best form, in part not playing in his position. However, at the beginning of 1991, Óscar Tabárez became Boca Juniors' new manager and he gave Batistuta the support and put him into his best place in the field, the centre of attack, rather than as an outside forward. Batistuta finished the season as the league's top scorer as Boca Juniors won the championship. While playing for Argentina in the 1991 Copa América, the vice-president of Fiorentina was impressed by Batistuta's skills and signed him. He had a fine start in Serie A, scoring 13 goals in his debut season. However, the following season, in 1992–93, Fiorentina lost in the relegation battle and were demoted to Serie B, despite Batistuta's 16 league goals. The club returned to Serie A after one season in Serie B, with the contribution of 16 goals from Batistuta and the management of Claudio Ranieri, as Fiorentina captured the 1993–94 Serie B title. At Fiorentina, Batistuta found his best form. He was the top scorer of the 1994–95 Serie A season with 26 goals, and he broke Ezio Pascutti's 32-year-old record by scoring in all of the first 11 matches of the season.

Reader's Guide

Batistuta was born on 1 February 1969 to slaughterhouse worker Omar Batistuta and school secretary Gloria Zilli, in the town of Avellaneda, province of Santa Fe, Argentina, but grew up in the nearby city of Reconquista. He has three older sisters, Elisa, Alejandra, and Gabriela. Batistuta is a Roman Catholic. At the age of 16, he met Irina Fernández, his future wife, at her quinceañera. On 28 December 1990, they were married at Saint Roque Church. The couple moved to Florence, Italy, in 1991, and a year later their first son, Thiago, was born. In 1997, Batistuta's second son, Lucas, was born, his third son, Joaquín, in 1999, his fourth son, Shamel, in 2004 or 2005, and his fifth son, Uzi Isman, in 2006. In 2000, Batistuta and his family moved to Rome, where he played for Roma. Two years after Shamel was born, Batistuta was loaned to Inter. In 2003, after 12 years in Italy, the family moved to Qatar where Batistuta had accepted a lucrative celebrity playing contract with Al-Arabi, ending his career there in 2005. He moved back to Argentina in 2007. Despite having completed his coaching badges in Argentina, he currently has no involvement with football, instead he prefers to play polo and golf. Batistuta currently runs his own construction company in Argentina. He also worked as technical secretary in the professional football club Colón, joining the club's staff in January 2012, and leaving at the end of the 2012–13 season. Batistuta lived in Perth, Western Australia but due to personal reasons, he moved back to Argentina.

Did You Know?

• Batistuta is the only player in football history to score two hat-tricks in different World Cups.
• He scored 10 goals in three FIFA World Cups, making him Argentina's second top scorer in the competition after Lionel Messi.
• Batistuta's transfer to Roma in 2000 for €36 million was the highest fee ever paid for a player over the age of 30 until Cristiano Ronaldo's move in 2018.
• He has five sons: Thiago, Lucas, Joaquín, Shamel, and Uzi Isman.