Biography of Christian Vieri

• Know something more about Vieri

                                             A man of few words but many nicknames, Christian Vieri has made a name for himself in the world of professional football. This third-generation footballer made headlines when he was traded by S.S. Lazio to F.C. Internazionale for a record amount of $45 million, and in the process brought down the wrath of the Vatican, which decried the amount of money spent on a sports player that could be used to help the sick and less advantaged. True to one of his Spanish nicknames, "il muto" -- the mute -- Vieri chose not to comment. However, il muto did comment on Lazio President Cragnotti's claim that Vieri had demanded more money from the Roman club.
     "Cragnotti has started all this confusion. He claimed I'd asked for a wage increase -- this is totally untrue. When this sort of thing happens, it makes you think whether or not you should be duty bound to a club, and I no longer felt like that toward Lazio. Yet I was contracted to Lazio and I would've given 100 percent if I'd stayed," explains Vieri.

• Starting for Vieri in the Professional football

     The headstrong nature of Vieri is nothing new. One of his early nicknames was "il mostro" -- the monster. "They nicknamed Christian 'the monster,'" his mother Natalie recalls. "He couldn't stand still." His kinetic pace has also continued as he has worked his way through a number of teams in his career.
     He first began playing in Australia with the youth league of the Marconi team for which his father first played and then coached. Vieri joined his first Italian team, Serie C1's Prato, in 1989. By the next year he had moved up to Serie A, where he played with Torino. After three seasons with Torino, he moved to Pisa, a Serie B team. In 93-94, he spent a season with Ravenna, and the next season he was in Venezia. His years with Ravenna and Venezia proved to be some of his best -- he scored 23 goals and played for the Under-21 Italy team in 1994, which went on to become champions of Europe. His success led him to Atalanta, where he scored seven goals in 19 matches. Although he wasn't yet a prolific scorer, his skill brought him to the attention of Juventus, which signed him the next season. He was originally a reserve player with Juve, but through the misfortune of Boksic and Del Piero, who were injured much of the season, he was given a chance to play. He and Amoruso proved to be a formidable team during the latter half of the season.  His success brought him the affection of the tifosi and the interest of Atletico, which paid a high sum to obtain Vieri. With Atletico, Vieri became the top scorer of the Spanish league with 24 goals in 24 matches.
     "It seemed I had to keep moving to keep developing my game," says Vieri of his many moves. "It was difficult, changing teams so often, but, on the other hand, I think I also learned a lot from the experience of working in different clubs, learning from so many different coaches and team mates."