The Sport Player: Luca Toni

Luca Toni, (born 26 May 1977 in Pavullo nel Frignano, Modena) is an Italian World Cup-winning footballer who is currently playing for Serie A club Juventus. He has had successful spells at top clubs such as Palermo, Fiorentina, Bayern Munich and Roma. Toni is highly regarded for his goal scoring ability as can be seen by his prolific goals to games ratio at many of his clubs. His style is at times seen as being unorthodox, however his strength and power have seen him become one of Serie A's most lethal finishers of the past decade. As well as the medals he has collected he has also won several individual honours including the Capocannonieri for the 2005–06 season in which he scored 31 goals. Toni started his professional career at Modena. This was followed by a number of seasons spent around Serie B and Serie C1 with teams such as Empoli, Fiorenzuola and Lodigiani. After a Serie B season with Treviso in 1999, he moved to Vicenza Calcio, playing in Serie A for the first time. He then moved to Brescia Calcio, playing for two seasons alongside Roberto Baggio. Toni made his debut for the Italian national team as a substitute on 18 August 2004 in a friendly match against Iceland. He scored his first international goal in a World Cup Qualifying match against Norway on 4 September 2004. On 17 November, Toni made his international start in a friendly match against Finland. On 11 June 2005, he captained the Italian squad for the first time in his career in a friendly match against Ecuador because of the absence of current captain Fabio Cannavaro and other experienced players. On 7 September, Toni scored his first international hat-trick in a 4–1 victory against Belarus in a 2006 World Cup qualifying match. Toni was selected to Italy's 2006 World Cup squad, and scored two goals in the quarter-finals against Ukraine on 30 June, his only goals of the tournament. In the final against France, he hit the crossbar with a powerful header and later netted another header although the goal was disallowed as the attempt was ruled offside. Toni scored two goals in Italy's 2–0 win over Scotland in a Euro 2008 qualifier. Due to the aforementioned foot surgery, he missed Italy's next two qualifiers against the Faroe Islands and Lithuania. He returned to the qualification games against Georgia, and assisted Fabio Grosso, who scored the final result (2–0). On 17 November 2007, Toni struck in the first minute of a 2–1 qualifier win over Scotland at Hampden Park, which secured Italy's place at the final stages. Four days later, he scored the second goal against the Faroe Islands, as Italy closed with a 3–1 win. He was called up to the Italian Squad for Euro 2008, but his form in the tournament was disappointing, with his only goal against Romania being disallowed for offside. Toni's main contribution for the team was winning a penalty kick against France, which ended 2–0. Italy then bowed out of the tournament on penalty kicks to Spain in the quarter-final. Despite the Euro 2008 disappointment, Toni was called up by coach Marcello Lippi for Italy's first two 2010 World Cup qualifers. Toni also scored an equaliser against Greece in an international friendly, where the match ended 1–1. He was successively not included in Marcello Lippi's provisional 30-man Italian squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.