Luca Toni looked into the camera, attempting a deadpan delivery but struggling to contain laughter around a dinner table.

“You ruined football, I couldn’t find a team for four years,” laughed Toni as he brought Pep Guardiola into the shot on his social media post. 

The pair are friends going back to their Brescia days, and while Toni was clearly joking at Guardiola’s expense, there are grains of truth in those words. 

The lamentable death of the No 9 in the modern game is one of the ongoing discussions among fans of an older vintage. Anyone over 30 will remember a time when strikers were in abundance.

And while Guardiola didn’t invent the false nine, he did popularise it.

Luciano Spalletti was using a false nine at Roma three years before the Catalan, where Francesco Totti was the spearhead in a 4-2-3-1 system. Yet Guardiola’s swashbuckling success at Barcelona sounded the death knell for players like Toni.

If Manchester City striker Erling Haaland is feted today, it is because of his boss, Guardiola. 

In retrospect, the late 1990s into the early 2000s was the last hurrah for the traditional striker, such were the options available that some teams had two Haalands in their side. Every club had at least one.

Then, football’s ocean was full of sharks who cared less about style, dribbles and flicks and more about finding the back of the net. 

Hernan Crespo was among the very best. A striker in the truest sense of the word who could score any kind of goal. Even still, Crespo remains an underrated figure in the pantheon of great No 9s.

It could be down to his vagabond nature. After leaving Parma for a world-record fee in the summer of 2000, Crespo was seemingly on the move every year. For the next six years he played for Lazio, Inter, Chelsea, AC Milan and Chelsea again before a return to Inter.

Crespo scored 211 goals for Italian teams in all competitions. To celebrate Il Valdanito’s 50th birthday, here are five of his greatest, one from each club he represented in a distinguished career.

5. Parma 1-1 Juventus (Serie A) – January 2000

Not the greatest goal in Crespo’s catalogue in terms of aesthetics, but this strike makes the list purely for what it meant.

The Old Lady was one of Crespo’s favourite victims: nine goals from 15 games against Italy’s biggest side is a remarkable record. The season prior he scored a hat-trick at the Stadio delle Alpi that signalled the end of Marcello Lippi’s all-conquering first reign in Turin.

A year later and the Argentine was back being a thorn in Juve’s side.

Games between Parma and Juve in the late 1990s and early 2000s were feisty. The two sides competed for domestic and European supremacy in 1994-95, slugged it out for the title in 1996-97 and squared off in the Coppa Italia final three times and the Italian Super Cup twice.

Juve were controversially handed a penalty in a May 1997 clash between the two that ostensibly denied Parma a first-ever Scudetto, a game that still continues to get under the skin of those involved.

Now at the turn of the millennium, the sides met in the first round of the new year. 

Alessandro Del Piero had given Carlo Ancelotti’s Juve the lead with a penalty with only 20 minutes remaining. 

Parma were reduced to nine men, with Stefano Torrisi and Dino Baggio receiving their marching orders, with the latter going out in style after a rash tackle on Gianluca Zambrotta, spitting in the direction of the referee and making a money gesture with his hands.

The game appeared to be going Juve’s way until the 93rd minute. The scant remembered Johan Walem, on as a late substitute, gained possession deep in his own half and squared the ball to Lilian Thuram.

The French defender returned the ball to Walem, who kept on running, gliding past Juve’s midfield. The Belgian then hit a raking outside-of-the-foot through ball to Crespo, who peeled off the shoulder of Ciro Ferrara.

Tip-toeing into the penalty box, Crespo stood Ferrara up, shimmying to his right then left, bamboozling the rugged Italian. Now getting closer to goal but at an angle, Crespo shifted the ball to his left foot. Running out of space and with Paolo Montero arriving to provide Ferrara support, Crespo had to shoot. He placed the ball into the opposite corner of Edwin van Der Sar’s goal, kissing the post en route.

The explosion of noise inside the Ennio Tardini was deafening. Crespo, whose parents were in the stand, couldn’t contain himself, the sheer ecstasy of the moment taking over. It was the only time a goal brought him to tears.

The moment has become legendary due to Carlo Chiesa’s commentary. Chiesa, working for local service Parma TV, loses his mind, and his voice. Instead of words, he spat out noises akin to an animal getting butchered on an Emilia-Romagna farm. Yet it adds to the euphoria of the moment.

The goal meant a point for Parma and kept them in the title hunt, with three points separating the Gialloblu, Juve and league leaders Lazio.

It is arguably Crespo’s definitive Parma goal.

4. Genoa 2-2 Juventus (Serie A) – September 2009

Crespo was firmly in the autumn of his career by this stage. Now 34 and having been a peripheral player at Inter in his final two seasons, he left on a free transfer and joined Gian Piero Gasperini in Genoa.

The Rossoblu were one of the surprise packages of 2008-09, finishing fifth and qualifying for the Europa League. The addition of Crespo was to bring much-needed experience to a club who had not been in Europe since their brilliant run to the 1992 UEFA Cup semi-final.

Crespo’s time in Genoa is often glossed over when looking at his career because it only lasted six months.

But even with his once-luscious locks gone and speckles of grey peeking through his short mane, his quality was still evident. And again, he saved some of his best magic for Juve.

The game was 1-1 and meandering towards a draw when Genoa broke down the right. Marco Rossi slid the ball to the rampaging Giandomenico Mesto, who had ran in behind Juve hardman Felipe Melo.

Mesto produced a marvel of a cross towards the penalty box, and Crespo did the rest. One of the best headers of a ball in Italian football history, Crespo had a knack for getting ahead of his marker and running across the face of the goal to guide the ball in at the near post.

Here, he stole a march on Nicola Legrottaglie to meet Mesto’s cross and plant his header past former Parma team-mate Gigi Buffon into the top corner.

It was vintage Crespo. The legs might have been going, but the movement was still as sharp as ever. 

It was the highlight of his time in Genoa, as he departed four months later with seven goals from 11 starts.

3. Lazio 5-0 Brescia (Serie A) – November 2001

Another Crespo staple was the instep flick. He scored three of them in 1998-99.

The one against Fiorentina in the Coppa Italia final second leg was close to making the list, but this one for the Biancocelesti against Roberto Baggio’s Brescia gets the nod instead.

Crespo signed for Lazio in the summer of 2000 and was bought with a view to making a serious dent in the following season’s Champions League. Sven-Goran Eriksson believed Lazio had a good enough team to battle on all fronts, and the Swede let Sergio Conceicao and Matias Almeyda go in order to bring Crespo to the capital.

The problem was, Eriksson departed for the England job, and Crespo had a slow start to life at Lazio.

Eriksson recalled a conversation with Crespo in which the Argentine told his boss not to fret. “One day Crespo said, ‘Mister, I don’t score many goals before Christmas’. But I said, ‘Hernan, by Christmas the season is half over’,” recalled Eriksson in a 2021 interview.

Crespo won his lone Capocannoniere title with Lazio, scoring 26 goals in 2000-01. Twenty-two of them came in the second half of the campaign.

By the start of his second season it was clear the glory days were over: Juan Sebastian Veron, Pavel Nedved and Marcelo Salas had been sold to balance the books, but Crespo remained.

Brescia rolled into town reeling from the news that talisman Baggio was out for four months after suffering an ACL tear against Venezia the week before. With morale rock bottom in light of Baggio’s injury, the Rondinelle were slaughtered by Lazio, and Crespo in particular.

A hat-trick was on the cards, and his first of the day, indeed his season, came just after six minutes. Brescia failed to deal with a Lazio throw as the ball fell to the feet of Fabio Liverani.

Liverani, another who does not get enough credit, played a slick pass into the feet of Karel Poborsky just inside the penalty box. Brescia’s beleaguered back line tried to play an offside trap and rushed out, yet they were not in sync. 

The Czech midfielder looked up and slid a cross towards Crespo, who flicked the ball into the opposite corner. 

Crespo’s second campaign was nowhere near as successful as the first, with only 13 goals scored in the league. In the final hours of the 2002 transfer market he and Alessandro Nesta were offloaded as club debt continued to grow. 

Nesta went to Milan, while Crespo would go to either Inter or Real Madrid, dependant on Ronaldo.

The Brazilian was Madrid’s first choice, so when the deal was finally done in the dying hours of the transfer window, Massimo Moratti pulled the trigger and brought Crespo to San Siro to play alongside Christian Vieri.

Which leads us nicely to…

2. Ajax 1-2 Inter Milan (Champions League) – November 2002

Crespo scored just shy of 50 headed goals in his career. There was none better than this.

His first stint at Inter was an odd one. Crespo saved his best performances for nights under the lights, turning into Mr Champions League. He claimed more goals in Europe than Serie A in 2002-03, and the case could be made this is the best he ever scored in an Inter jersey.

The header itself is sublime, but the build-up is just as good. The interplay between Domenico Morfeo, Vieri and Crespo was just lovely, with the ball going from the halfway line to the back of the net with just four touches and a dummy.

Crespo rose to meet Vieri’s first-time cross, displaying Michael Jordan levels of hang-time as he emerged behind Nigel De Jong to power his header into Joey Didulica’s goal.

The Vieri-Crespo tandem would seem anachronistic to younger viewers. Both were No 9s, and on the surface the partnership shouldn’t have worked. But it did.

“Sometimes strikers can be prima donnas,” Crespo told to Amazon Prime Italia recently. “And usually for a little while you want people in the dressing room to see you’re the man, but with Bobo [Vieri] there was zero selfishness.

“When I arrived [at Inter], he said, ‘Let’s score lots of goals, I’ll pass it to you and you to me’. We were great.”

And Vieri was as good as his word. The pair scored 43 goals between them in all competitions despite each being injured at different times in the campaign.

Where Crespo flourished in Europe, Vieri left his best for Serie A, scoring a frankly ludicrous 24 goals in 23 games to win the Capocannoniere award.

Such was the harmony between the pair that when Inter sold Crespo to Chelsea in the summer of 2003 amid financial strain, Vieri was the only person to complain about it.

“What are we doing? Instead of reinforcing we are weakening,” fumed Vieri at the time. “Inter sold Ronaldo and in his place bought Crespo and now they are selling him.”

Yet there will always be this goal, a testament to how good their short-but-sweet pairing was.

1. Milan 3-3 Liverpool (Champions League) – May 2005

If football nirvana exists, this goal must comes very close to it.

The story of Istanbul is known to everyone and their uncle, so we won’t get into the details again here. But Crespo’s second of the night has been cruelly reduced to a footnote amid the chaos, drama and disbelief of Liverpool’s comeback and shootout victory.

But everything about the goal is exquisite: from Kaka’s balletic spin past Steven Gerrard, to the Brazilian’s defence-splitting 60-yard pass that carved Liverpool’s defence to pieces, and then the cherry on top, Crespo’s utterly deft and outrageous Panenka-style finish.

It was the beautiful game stripped back, streamlined. From back to front in six touches, half of them majestic.

“It’s definitely one of my best – not just because of its beauty, but because it was in a Champions League final,” Kaka told FourFourTwo magazine. 

“It’s a sweet feeling to do that in such an important match. But the assist can only exist if your forward puts the ball in the back of the net, no? Crespo did that part brilliantly, which was so crucial to the beauty of that moment. I definitely keep that pass in a special place of my memories.”

Milan had dissected Liverpool in a display that was as dominant as any seen in a Champions League final. “Sheer football brutality,” was how Jamie Carragher described it years later.

“Milan are playing football out of this world,” cried Clive Tyldesley on ITV commentary. He wasn’t wrong.

“It’s maybe one of my greatest goals,” said Crespo in a 2018 interview. 

Respectfully, Hernan, you’re wrong. 

It is your greatest goal.