Christian Vieri

Born in 1973 in Bologna, Italy,[5] to active professional footballer Roberto Vieri[6][7][8] and Christiane "Nathalie" Rivaux,[9] Christian spent the first years of his life in the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region while his Prato-born father played for Bologna FC. With Roberto Vieri's 1977 transfer to Marconi Stallions FC, the family moved to Sydney, Australia, residing in the suburb of Wetherill Park in South Western Sydney where young Christian attended Prairiewood High School. It is from his father that he inherited his nickname Bobo which he carried with him throughout his career.[6][7][8]

During his time in Australia, Vieri developed a love for both football and cricket, a sport he still follows to this day. He stated in an interview that he would have liked to have been a professional cricketer.[10] His brother, Massimiliano Vieri, was also a professional footballer and was an Australian international in 2004. Vieri played for Marconi Juniors when he was a child but his family subsequently moved back to Italy.

Vieri scored 23 goals in 49 matches for Italy between 1997 and 2005.[33] He played for his country at the 1998 World Cup, scoring five times, and the 2002 World Cup, scoring four times. He endured a less successful tournament at Euro 2004, whilst he missed Euro 2000 and 2006 World Cup through injury. Vieri is generally considered to be Italy's greatest pure striker of recent times, despite strong competition, and is one of Italy's most prolific World Cup goal scorers. Appearing in a total of nine World Cup games in 1998 and 2002, he found the net nine times, making him one of the most feared strikers in those tournaments along with Ronaldo and Miroslav Klose, and Italy's joint-highest World Cup goalscorer, alongside Roberto Baggio and Paolo Rossi.[34] He was named by Pelé as one of the 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004.[2] Alongside Francesco Graziani, he is Italy's ninth-highest goalscorer of all time.

Vieri received his first international cap during the 1996–97 season after some impressive displays for Juventus; he made his Italy senior debut on 29 March 1997, at the age of 23, in a 3–0 win over Moldova, in which he also scored his first international goal, which was also the 1000th goal scored by the Italy national team.[35] He scored a key goal for Italy in a 1–1 draw in the away leg of the team's play off against Russia during their qualification campaign for the 1998 World Cup.[36] At the finals of the tournament in France he formed a strong partnership with Roberto Baggio. Vieri opened the scoring against Chile after an assist from his strike partner.[37] He went on to score three more goals during the group stage: two against Cameroon,[38] and one against Austria.[39] Vieri scored Italy's only goal in the round of 16 match against Norway.[40] He scored Italy's fourth penalty in the quarter-final shootout against hosts and eventual champions France, but Luigi Di Biagio missed the fifth spot-kick, and Italy were eliminated. The aforementioned quarter-final showdown against France, which had ended in a 0–0 draw following extra time, was the only game of the tournament in which Vieri was unable to score.[41]

Vieri missed out Dino Zoff's squad for Euro 2000 after suffering a recurrence of an old thigh injury, following a collision with Gianluigi Buffon during the Serie A fourth place playoff for the final Champions League spot with Inter, against Parma, at the end of the 1999–2000 season;[42][43] Buffon would later also miss out on the tournament through injury.[44]

Italy played Vieri as a lone striker in the 2002 World Cup under manager Giovanni Trapattoni, scoring an impressive four goals in four games. He managed a brace in the opening game against Ecuador,[45] and scored Italy's only goal in the 2–1 defeat to Croatia despite having a previous goal incorrectly ruled out for offside.[46] In the round of 16 match against co-hosts South Korea, he opened the scoring in the 18th minute, scoring a powerful header from a Francesco Totti corner. Italy led the game until the Koreans equalised two minutes before the end. Just one minute after the Korean equaliser, Vieri missed an open goal which would have put Italy in front.[47] Italy were eventually eliminated by South Korea by a golden goal.[48] The only game in which he failed to find the net was against Mexico in a 1–1 draw.[49]

Vieri was once again the main striker in Italy's ill-fated Euro 2004 campaign. This time he did not fare so well, however, scoring no goals as Italy were eliminated in the first round.[50] It was during this tournament that his now infamous "more of a man" press conference took place following Italy's 1–1 draw against Sweden, where he hit back at his critics in the Italian press by insulting them, and stated that he was "more of a man" than any of them, and accused them of publishing false news stories, after a rumour concerning a supposed quarrel between Vieri and his teammate Gianluigi Buffon had been leaked in the press.[51] It is worth noting that Euro 2004 occurred at a particularly painful period of Vieri's life, when he was being spied upon by his own club Inter and Telecom Italia at the request of club owner Massimo Moratti. In September 2012, Inter and Telecom Italia were ordered by a Milan court to pay Vieri damages amounting to €1 million for this case of phone tapping.[52]

More disappointment occurred when he missed the 2006 World Cup after suffering a knee meniscus injury in a Ligue 1 match with Monaco against Paris Saint-Germain on 26 March 2006.[53] Although Vieri would not necessarily have been a starter for Marcello Lippi's side, Lippi admitted that he would have picked him had he been fit, and even encouraged him to move to France in order to gain more playing time ahead of the tournament.[54] He played in three tournaments, but failed to win a medal in each of them, missing out on the Euro 2000 runners-up medal and the 2006 World Cup winners medal due to injury. His final appearance for Italy had come against Moldova, the team against which he had also made his debut, on 12 October 2005, under Lippi; he marked the occasion by scoring his final international goal in the 2–1 home win.[55]

Vieri was a complete, prolific and opportunistic striker, with a keen eye for goal.[56][57] Due to his notable goal-scoring prowess, Vieri is regarded by pundits as one of the greatest Italian strikers of all time[58][59] and one of the top strikers of his generation.[4] Although he was considered to be more of a physical rather than talented player in his youth, who lacked strong technical ability, he was able to refine his touch on the ball in training as his career progressed, showing significant improvements to his technique.[60] In his prime, his unique and direct offensive style of play, which blended power with pace and solid technical skills, led him to be compared to Luigi Riva and Roberto Boninsegna, as well as earning him the nickname of "Il Toro" ("The Bull").[56][61][62][63] Despite his goalscoring ability, he was also injury prone throughout his career, however, which greatly affected his pace, fitness and mobility in later years.[64] Vieri was predominantly left-footed, although he was capable of scoring with both feet, as well as with his head, and from volleys.[57] He has often been described as a large, old fashioned centre forward, due to his powerful physical presence and outstanding aerial ability; he is the all-time top scorer of headed goals in Italian league history.[56][65][66] He also excelled at finding space to anticipate opponents and get on the end of passes.[67] Despite being primarily a goal-scoring striker, he was also capable of providing assists to teammates, which was aided by his ability to use his strength to hold up the ball and play with his back to goal in order to participate in the build-up of attacking plays;[68][69][70] he also excelled at beating the offside trap to get on the end of long balls with his runs in behind the defence, which also allowed him to provide depth to his team.[67] Although he was primarily a goal-area threat, Vieri had an accurate and powerful shot from distance as well as inside the area;[57] he was also an accurate penalty taker.[71]

Vieri is of Italian and French descent as his mother Christiane was born in Casablanca[72] and raised in Paris.[73] His father, Roberto, was also a footballer, who played both in Italy and Australia.[6][7][8] His brother, Massimiliano "Max" Vieri, played for Australia.[74] In an interview at the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Vieri named his all-time sporting hero as Australian cricketer Allan Border, and said that as a child he was better at cricket than football.[75]

Christian Vieri's personal life has been subject to much media attention in Italy. He has been involved in many high-profile relationships, including those with models Elisabetta Canalis, Elena Santarelli, Debora Salvalaggio, Fernanda Lessa, Melissa Satta and Jazzma Kendrick, among others.[76][77]

Vieri has his own fashion label – Sweet Years – which he runs with friend and former Italy and A.C. Milan teammate Paolo Maldini.[78][79] The pair also own a number of restaurants in the city of Milan.[80] Another close friend of his is former forward Alessandro Matri, with whom he has been seen holidaying in Spain, along with other friends. He also started another clothing brand (Baci & Abbracci) with close friend and footballer Cristian Brocchi and model Alena Šeredová.[81][82]

Vieri presented a footvolley cup with the name Bobo summer cup, in 2018.[83][84]

In 2017, Vieri began a relationship with Italian showgirl Costanza Caracciolo.[85] On 18 November 2018, Vieri and Caracciolo announced the birth of their daughter Stella on Instagram.[86] On 18 March 2019, the pair were married in a small civil ceremony at Villa Litta Modignani in the Affori ward of Milan.[87] Toward the end of October that year, the couple announced that they were expecting a second child.[88]

Vieri features in EA Sports' FIFA video game series; he was on the cover for the Italian edition of FIFA 99,[89] and was named in the Ultimate Team Legends in FIFA 14.[90]

Vieri featured as Ivan Drago in the 2000 Italian film, Picasso's face.

In December 2003, Vieri participated in the Italian TV broadcast Chi vuol essere milionario? forming a memorable duo with Gennaro Gattuso during an episode organised for charity purposes. Vieri and Gattuso answered 13 questions in a row correctly, retiring after reading the second-to-last question, winning an outstanding amount of €150,000.[91][92][93] The thirteenth question represented a dramatic yet hilarious moment on Italian television: being the duo doubtful about the correct answer, Vincenzo Montella, one of the football players who were in the audience, invited Vieri and Gattuso to walk away with the already collected amount of €70,000 without risking to reduce the final prize to €16,000 answering incorrectly. Vieri playfully suggested selling the player ("Ma vendetelo!"), while Gattuso jokingly asked for getting Montella out of the studio as he was behaving like a jinx ("Porta una sfiga Montella, mandatelo via!").[92][93][94]

Having retired from professional football, Vieri started working as a pundit and consultant for beIN Sports.[95] He successively started his weekly Twitch-based podcast, named Bobo TV, together with former teammates Antonio Cassano, Daniele Adani and Nicola Ventola, which quickly became one of the most popular Web-based shows in Italy.[96]