Opinion: Stats don’t tell the whole Batigol story

Gabriel Batistuta was not the youngest player to ever transfer to Roma.

By the time he took the trip southward from Fiorentina to the capital, he was 31 years old.

The Argentine was not the cheapest player the club ever bought, either; he cost £23.5m, which, as of 2014, some 14 years later, was still the most expensive transfer of all time for a player in their 30s.

And he didn’t even stay at Roma for that long – just three seasons, and in his latter two, he scored only six goals and four goals respectively.

To rate Batistuta on any of that would be to miss the mark, though it’s certainly not difficult to imagine modern football having a much different reaction to a world-record transfer who stayed at the club for only three season and hit double-digit scoring just once.

On the basis of mere metrics such as those, he probably wouldn’t be held in such high regard.

But he is, and there’s so much more to his significance than just those stats.

He is, and forever will be, remembered as a Roma legend, and for one simple reason: he was the missing piece, the link and the force and the power, that brought Roma their third Scudetto.

Before his arrival, Roma had gone 18 years without the trophy. The season before, during 1999-2000, the side finished 6th, featuring a 23-year-old Francesco Totti and a 26-year-old Vincenzo Montella who scored 25 goals between them.

During the following summer, Roma added three names that quickly became staples: Walter Samuel, Emerson, and Gabriel Batistuta, who on his own, scored 20.

The chemistry between the captain and the striker was nearly telepathic – perhaps only bettered by the later bond that Totti would form with Antonio Cassano.

Batistuta thrived off of Totti’s creativity, and returned it with slick assists himself from time to time. His primary job, of course, was to notch goals, and he so often finished with aplomb, showing off the kind of ice-cold confidence and power that only the very elite strikers have.

His goal-scoring appetite was nearly insatiable; he scored at least 20 goals for four season in a row in the league, and what’s all the more remarkable, is that his 20-goal tally for Roma in 2000-2001 was actually only his 5th best tally in his time in Italy.

His 33 goals over his three years with Roma however were as varied as they come, featuring, for example, his set-piece precision in a free-kick against Juventus and his technical ability via an audacious volley on-the-fly against Fiorentina.

Choosing the best would be nearly impossible.

His most memorable? That perhaps is easier; his smart cut-back and pinpoint finish to score the side’s third against Parma, on 17 June 2001, putting the result beyond a shadow of a doubt, despite Marco Di Vaio’s late effort, and guide the side to their first Scudetto in nearly 20 years.

15 years later, that goal – and the other 32 – live on fondly in the hearts and minds of Romanisti, who recall the 31-year-old who came from a rival and brought the side back to the summit of the league.