Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Luca Toni

Luca Toni (born 26 May 1977) is an Italian World Cup-winning footballer who currently plays 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. His strength, however, 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 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.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.