Oranges038
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- Oct 19, 2020
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Di Natale did almost all his impressive goalscoring a few years post-calciopoli, an entirely different era when Serie A was in decline and higher numbers were easier to get. That said he was definitely an excellent goalscorer and well above average as an overall player at that time, just a late developer. Underrated imo.
Vieri was a mid 90s/early 00s player that was finished before that time and played when talent was more spread out and the league was stronger. He was also injury prone, but still posted better than a goal every 2 games for about 8 seasons. Of course ideally you want a striker to stay fit the whole season and get past 20, rather than have as impressive a goalscoring to games ratio yet due to injuries you're only getting 12-14 goals, but still considering the more defensive era than post-calciopoli he was a very good goalscorer. Definitely way above an average player.
For a similar player to Vieri, i'd say Alen Boksic is closer to the mark though imo he was clearly better than average too. He had the one brilliant almost balon d'or winning season at Marseille where his pace, strength, good two-footed skill and goalscoring made him look a monster, but before and after that was always far more wasteful rarely even getting 10 league goals. Still very useful as a creative and battering ram forward though.
Vieiri's peak was 1999 to 2005 with Inter, he had 2 really good years and for the most expensive player in the world his goal return was quite about average