MILAN: Like Gianluca Vialli and Gianfranco Zola before him, new Chelsea striker Hernan Crespo arrives at Stamford Bridge with a track record as one of the top forwards in Italy's Serie A.

But unlike his predecessors at the London club, the 28-year-old Argentine, who signed a 16.8-million-pound (US$26.28 million) four-year deal on Tuesday, has moved to England at the peak of his career.

He has the chance to make even more of a lasting impact in the premier league than the two Italians.

The raw statistics are impressive - 108 goals in 188 Serie A matches for Parma, Lazio and Inter Milan give Crespo a strike rate few can match against tight Serie A defences.

With 18 goals in 38 internationals, Crespo is also the first choice to lead the Argentina attack after years in the shadow of record scorer Gabriel Batistuta.

His lone season with Inter is viewed by many as having been a disappointment. Yet that is a harsh assessment - despite a mid-season injury that sidelined him for almost three months, he still managed to score 16 goals in 30 games in Serie A and the Champions League.

A tall and athletic centre-forward who is strong in the air, Crespo appears well-suited to the physical demands of English football and in many ways fits the identity of the traditional number nine.

No stereotype

Off the field, though, he certainly does not match the stereotype of the Serie A footballer.

With long hair and often turning out in jeans, training shoes and tee-shirt with bracelets dangling from his wrist, he looks uncomfortable when forced into a suit.

And while his transfer to Chelsea came as a shock for Inter, he gave an indication two years ago that he was not entirely happy in Italian football.

"When I arrived in Italy in 1996, the Italian championship was the most beautiful in the world. It no longer is because there is too much attention paid to results and not enough to entertainment," he told the Argentine paper Clarin.

"They treat players like machines. If the Italians don't change that mentality, they'll continue to lose players."

Such frank talk from the striker is not limited to his views about football.

An intelligent and thoughtful man, he has also made his views on the political and economic crisis in Argentina well known, once providing a list of the questions he would like to ask former Argentine president Carlos Menem.

Middle class

Born into a middle class family in Florida, a suburb of Buenos Aires, Crespo made his debut for his local club River Plate in 1994.

He picked up the nickname "Valdanito" (little Valdano) due to his similarity to 1986 World Cup-winning forward Jorge Valdano, now Real Madrid's sporting director.

Among River Plate fans he is best remembered for helping the club win the Libertadores Cup, the South American club championship, for the second time in 1996, scoring twice in the home leg of the final in Buenos Aires.

It was a performance which convinced Italian club Parma to spend $4 million to bring him to Italy - a wise investment given that four years later he was sold on to Lazio for a then world record US$54 million.

He joined a Lazio side that had just claimed the Serie A title and was re-united with his Argentina and former Parma team mate Juan Sebastian Veron - who he now joins for the third time at Chelsea.

Crespo looked to be just what Lazio were lacking - a genuine goalscorer to assist in their transformation into a top European side.

Dream unravels

But midway through his first season with the Rome club, coach Sven Goran Eriksson quit to take over the England team and the Lazio dream began to unravel.

Crespo was Serie A's top scorer with 26 goals in 32 games in that first year with Lazio. But he managed just half that amount in an injury-plagued second season.

Then came disappointment in the World Cup, with Argentina failing to get beyond the group stage in Japan and South Korea.

He was given the chance for a fresh start when cash-strapped Lazio sold him to Inter Milan as a replacement for Ronaldo when the Brazilian moved to Real Madrid.

Crespo seemed glad to have waved goodbye to Lazio.

"I was never a fan of Lazio, not because I didn't connect with the fans, but because I never felt the club was backing me up," he said after joining Inter.

He hardly had time to build a rapport with the Inter fans - his first and only season with the club was disrupted by a torn thigh ligament injury in January which kept him out of action for three months.

Now he has gone and Inter's loss is without a doubt Chelsea and the premier league's gain.

Agencies via Xinhua

(China Daily 08/28/2003 page8)