Zee!?

Seedorf.

Sea-door-f ?!

Of course I'm not I call him Sea-dorf.

Where on earth did the name 'Zee' come from? Jack, you've some explainin to do!

Early Doors has a few guilty secrets. Many of them involve midgets, armed coups in central African nations and enormous quantities of cheese.

But perhaps the most shameful of all is this - ED loves Filippo Inzaghi.

Now 35, Inzaghi is the kind of out-and-out striker that seems to be dying out of the modern game.

He is the opposite of Emile Heskey. He isn't a team player, he doesn't track back, he doesn't hold the ball up and he certainly doesn't put in the hard yards. All he does is score stacks of important goals.

And last night he stuck it to Portsmouth with a sensational stoppage-time effort that scraped a 2-2 draw for Milan.

ED has done a lot of research on Superpippo and has discovered the following:

He spends 31 per cent of his time gesticulating, 24 per cent getting caught offside, 19 per cent rolling on the deck brandishing imaginary yellow cards, 14 per cent clasping his hands together and making a face like a toddler who has just dropped his ice cream on the floor, and the remaining 12 per cent of his time on the pitch is spent scoring goals.

Early Doors spent years despising Inzaghi. It hated the playacting, the whining and the constant irritation of seeing him deliver at crunch time.

It joined in the sniping, nodding sagely when Jaap Stam called him and his brother Simone "diving cheats" and chuckling when Sir Alex Ferguson said: "Filippo Inzaghi was born in an offside position."

Then something strange happened. As Inzaghi continued to defy his critics, scoring goals in the face of constant criticism and derision, Early Doors's hatred turned to grudging respect, then admiration, then full, unsettlingly profound love.

Admittedly, Early Doors has a thing for anti-heroes - Inzaghi joins George W. Bush, William Gallas and Craig Revel-Horwood on ED's list of lovable rogues.

No wonder he feels as though the world is against him - he has scored over 250 goals in his club career and 25 for his country, yet every compliment of him is backhanded.

This zinger from Johan Cruyff summed it up perfectly: "He can't play football at all. He's just always in the right position."

Only six players have scored more in the Champions League: Andriy Shevchenko, Raul, Alfredo Di Stefano, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Thierry Henry and Eusebio.

So you can shut your face when Early Doors calls him one of the greatest strikers of all time.

Last night's goal was his 68th in European competition, and was classic Inzaghi.

It was timed to inflict maximum misery on the opposition - an equaliser in the 92nd minute of a game Milan had deservedly trailed 2-0.

There was a whiff of controversy about it, with Inzaghi taking up his customary position nanometres from straying offside.

His first touch was a sublime piece of control; his second was a lucky bobble off his shin; and his third was a little slice of predatory genius, prodding the ball into the bottom-left corner.

He has been doing it since Peter Crouch was in short(er) trousers, and Portsmouth should have known not to give him a yard of space in their box.

Inzaghi celebrated in customary fashion, breaching a lacklustre cordon of stewards to get stuck in with the away support. He went back for more after the game, chucking various items of clothing to his adoring fans.

And that, it seems, is what makes him so good. This was, for Milan, the fabled cold Tuesday night at Rochdale.

An away trip in the UEFA Cup - a competition Milan are mortified to be in - to play a game that was not even shown on Italian TV. Yet Inzaghi celebrated his equaliser like it was the World Cup final.

No less a sage than Silvio Berlusconi, fresh from praising Barack Obama's tan, actually hit the nail on the head in his appraisal of Inzaghi: "Perhaps his touch on the ball isn't very good, but he lives for the goal."

While he appears to embody all the precious, whingeing, cheating values we hate in the modern game, Filippo Inzaghi is a purist's dream. He doesn't care about image, wealth or WAGs. All he cares about is scoring goals.

Btw. how is Seedorf really spelled?? Is it Se-dorf or Si-dorf or Zi-dorf?

The Italians Se-dorf
But I think the correct on would be Sea-dorf

MILANELLO - Superpippo speaks. On his return from Bremen, in the fireplace room of Milanello, Inzaghi dropped some of the German adrenaline (he scored his 9th goal against a German team with the Milan shirt in European Cups, and the 12th one including his three goals against Hamburger HV with Juventus) and talked about himself and the team: "66 goals in Europe? Yes, it's important but what counted the most was doing well for Milan. It was a long time that I hadn't played from the start and I had prepared well for this, because when you don't play frequently you have to prepare carefully, in a special way. Still last night by the 65th minute I had cramps, but I am happy because I played a good match and I also scored. The goalscoring record in Europe? It will be remembered when I will quit playing, now I enjoy it, especially as an Italian: being there with many champions from other countries, and competing in this classification is very important. Certainly, without the team mates I had in all these years at Milan I wouldn't be here talking about these things. I like to share these joys with them and I am happy I can still experience these important European nights which are full of satisfactions."

"With Milan - Filippo Inzaghi continued to Milan Channel - I reached 105 goals in official games with the Rossoneri shirt. A nice number, but now let's try to go forward, the only disappointment is that I wasn't able to celebrate the 100th goal the right way because it was the match against Udinese last May which, although we won it, did not allow us to qualify for the Champions League, but for me the basis of everything is doing well now, I don't have any pains, I try to give a hand when I can and let's see what happens in the next few games. The derby? I was very disappointed to lose the derby but it happens. Sunday night I was happy because I was doing well and that's the most important thing, then it's clear that the great goal I scored in the second half would have been the cherry on the cake but it was offside, then there was that penalty which unfortunately the referee didn't see, while at the end Julio Cesar made a great save, a save only him and a few other goalkeepers in the world are able to make. In the league we now have to think about finishing in the first three for the qualification to the next Champions League, then we'll see what happens, now let's think about winning on Sunday against Cagliari, a very tough side who are doing very well. The goals conceded? We know very well that we conceded two identical goals between the match with Inter and last night: we have to improve on this aspect. Now let's roll up our sleeves because we have to think about winning on Sunday and then next Thursday to get through in the Uefa Cup."

Thanks Tennie.

It's quite sad that Pippo, the man who won us our most European Cup amongst other things, only has 19 pages. Yet Pato, who's only been here 18 onths and done little of note, has over 100!

Hmh,...you got me thinking...
I agree, it's kind of sad.

Welcome to my world, zeddie. It's done to pretty much every other player on the team on a very regular basis. Pato is hardly being singled out.

Anyway, this is the Pippo thread. Let's talk about him, shall we?

Don't get your point completely. Just wanted to say that I agree with Kurt how funny it is that a Inzaghi-thread is half as "hot" as a Pato thread, when the first spent more then just a few years more then Pato here. No segregation, no classification. Pure facts..

I'd appeal we stop here and from now on try read what people actually say and not misquote them.

Wow, I'm sick of the way Pato's name is brought up in a rather negative way every now and then...

A big part of Pato's thread is all the transfer blah blah before he signed up.

Damn fanboys! You can't be serious! huh.gif biggrin.gif

I didn't mean it in a negative way to Pato, it's just surprising to me that somebody has given some of his best years to the club and done great things here yet doesn't seem to be as talked about as a guy who's played for the club for a year. Nothing against Pato at all, it's not like it's his fault people talk about him alot.

Surprising? In what way? I don't think so... I mean, Pato is a hot subject but no one respects him more than we do Pippo.

But again, this isn't anything to do with Pato. It just so happened I was reading his thread before I went into Inzaghi's and noticed the difference. I could have said Ronaldinho or Beckham or whoever else, it was just by chance that Pato was the comparison, no other reason.

Surprising in the sense that Pippo has been at the club long, done more for the club, therefore giving us more talking points..

But again, this isn't anything to do with Pato. It just so happened I was reading his thread before I went into Inzaghi's and noticed the difference. I could have said Ronaldinho or Beckham or whoever else, it was just by chance that Pato was the comparison, no other reason.

Yeah... Zed.D still think we all hate him...

I'm back in the discussion!

I don't think the number of a certain player thread's pages has anything to do with the amount of the the time that player's been here. Milan fan hasn't been around since 2001, has it?

Talking points? again, I doubt there is much to say/remember about what Pippo did in the 2003/04 season, for example. people tend to forget things as time passes by. just because a certain player's been here for nearly a decade doesn't mean there are more subjects about him to discuss than a newcomer. just my opinion.

Ignore dst! I understand what you mean.

Let's all sing "I feel pretty", shall we?

So this is what happens when I leave the forum for a few days, eh?

So this is what happens when I leave the forum for a few days, eh?

Totally! I see you're back early, though!