Roberto Baggio, the Little Prince of Italian soccer staged one of the greatest performances of an illustrious career on Sunday night when single-footedly turning around a game to steer Inter Milan to a 4-1 home win against AS Roma.
A roller-coaster year which began with Baggio at odds with his Bologna coach, Renzo Uliveri, and seemingly totally out of the running for France 98 has ended with Italian soccer's most famous name seemingly set to play out the sunset years of his career at Inter, alongside some of the greatest talents in world soccer, including, of course, Ronaldo.
The year did, of course, yield him his dream trip to France. With Alessandro Del Piero injured, Baggio climbed back into the driving seat, not only in the Italian squad but providing his own enigmatic fuse for the powder-keg attacking qualities of Christian Vieri.
Better still, that roller-coaster year has ended with Baggio in simply devastating form. When he came on as a 54th minute substitute for Frenchman Youri Djorkaeff on Sunday night, Inter were losing 0-1 against a Roma side in full cry. Only good goalkeeping from Inter's Gianluca Pagliuca had denied Roma a second goal that would, presumably, have wrapped up the match.
With his first touch, Baggio sent Ronaldo (who else?) clean through for a terrific chance which Roma goalkeeper Antonio Chimenti did well to save. With his second touch, Baggio chipped a peach of a pass wide to defender Francesco Colonnese, who in turned crossed for Frenchman Benoit Cauet to equalise.
Baggio then delivered the killer blow - if unintentionally - when his feinting, jinking, run left Roma central defender Fabio Petruzzi no option but to resort to a professional foul to stop him. As it was Petruzzi's second offence, he was on his way for an early shower leaving his side to be run ragged by Baggio.
From that moment on, it was one-way traffic, with Baggio at the centre of everything good. By turns, he hit the post with a free kick, scored a third Inter goal himself and then set up the fourth for Javier Zanetti.
This was a performance that will have fired a warning shot across the bows of Inter's future rivals, both in Serie A and in the Champions League where, of course, they are due to meet Manchester United in an eagerly-awaited quarter-final tie. This was a performance which not only illustrated Baggio's return to form but which also suggested that Ronaldo is finally on the road to post-World Cup recovery and which, perhaps even more importantly, justified Inter's controversial decision to sack coach Gigi Simoni three weeks ago, replacing him with Romanian Mircea Lucescu.
Simoni was sacked not so much because his Inter had lost some important league games (to Lazio, Juventus, Bari and Fiorentina), nor because it had emphatically lost an early season Champions League tie away to Real Madrid, but rather because owner/president Massimo Moratti was tired of watching his side's percentage, counter-attacking, cautious style of play.
At the time, the sacking of Simoni, just five days after Inter had practically wrapped up their Champions League quarter-final berth with a 3-1 home win against Real Madrid, made little sense to soccer professionals. Results, after all, are results and Simoni had them on his side.
Watching Inter open up Roma with a three-man attack comprising Baggio, Chilean striker Ivan Zamorano and Ronaldo (later replaced by Andrea Pirlo), however, it seemed that the side has already absorbed something of Lucescu's less cautious footballing instincts.
Moratti had no doubts, commenting: "We're going to have to get used to this new vivacity, which is already beginning to bear fruit . . . the side now looks much more brilliant in attack."
When the Serie A championship resumes on January 6th, Inter will be right back in the championship hunt in fourth place on 24 points, five behind leaders Fiorentina. What is more, for almost the first time this season, Inter are likely to find themselves with both Baggio and Ronaldo fully fit and raring to go.
Baggio may now be best used as second-half substitute coming on at a time when his devastating technique wreaks havoc on tired opponents. Inter and Baggio have reason to look to the New Year with optimism.
Rivals Beware.
