Toni: Classic centre-forwards are no longer fashionable

Published on: 09 March 2016

Retiring Hellas Verona forward Luca Toni doesn’t see a future for strikers such as himself in the game.

The 38-year-old believes that out-and-out goalscorers are on a rapid decline as football changes across generations.

“I don’t have a heir, attackers aren’t fashionable anymore,” said Toni to Undici.

“There aren’t many centre-forwards like me or [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic left.

“Now, you have all these false nines and not many Italian players are emerging.

“When I was in the national team all of the attackers were starters and we would score 20-25 goals a season each. Now we don’t have one who is starting for a big club and it’s a cause for celebration if they score 15.

“I used to think there were too many foreign players but now I see that young players are different to how they were in my era.

“They used to be hungrier but now they have all this attention via social networks and they feel as though they are made after playing in two games.

“It’s a generational issue that goes beyond football.”

The former Fiorentina forward also discussed his fondest memories in the game.

“It’s too easy to say that night in Berlin when we won the World Cup in 2006 against all expectations,” Toni added.

“I’ll go back further, I was at Lodigiani after a bad year. I found a coach is no longer with us called Guido Attardi and he made me enthusiastic immediately and I started scoring goals from then on.”

The Italian also looked back upon his time at Bayern Munich.

“The Allianz Arena is certainly the best stadium and it is wonderful to score there,” Toni continued.

“But at Bayern it is obligatory to be the top scorer.

“You have to be there on merit because it’s a great club.

“The fans still treat me well, some still go to the stadium in my shirt and German visitors to the Verona training centre say that they miss me.

“I was different to the other players there, I like to have a laugh while they were all very serious.

“I still hear from Franck [Ribery] and [Ottmar] Hitzfeld.”

The striker is also optimistic about Serie A’s future in the years after he hangs up his boots.

“It was even worse a few years ago, but it is improving now,” Toni added.

“Great players are coming here again, two or three years ago they all wanted to get away but now they’re coming back.”

Source: forzaitalianfootball.com

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