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• I've always given everything for every team I've played for so that the ordinary fans, the people in the stadium, could identify with me. I owe a lot to the fans of Roma, Fiorentina and Argentina. They were the reason I played, my inspiration. I always worked hard to improve my game, to prove to myself that I could be one of the best for as long as possible. To be honest, I couldn’t care less what the others think.

• When I was playing football I never enjoyed it that much, I was never happy ... if I scored two goals, I wanted a third, I always wanted more. Now it’s all over I can look back with satisfaction, but I never felt that way when I was playing.

About Gabriel Batistuta

• [..] I was watching him in training for the first couple of days and he was one of the worst trainers I'd ever seen [...] His technique was lousy, his shots were going wide – but then he scored ten goals in the first five or six games and I realised what a player he was. (Brian Laudrup, his ex-Fiorentina teammate, 2006).