Former Azzurri striker Christian Vieri has agreed to join newly promoted Atalanta for the Serie A minimum wage - 1,500 euros a month. However, the 33-year-old player - whose 45-million-move from Lazio to Inter Milan set a world transfer record in 1999 - will be able to make a lot more if he gets back to his best.
The Bergamo-based club have agreed to pay Vieri a 100,000-euro bonus for every goal he scores.
"If things go well, Vieri will cost me two million euros," said Atalanta Chairman Ivan Ruggeri. Vieri's career has dipped over the last two years
because of poor form and a string of injuries.
He left Inter at the end of the 2004-05 season on a free transfer and moved to cross-town rivals AC Milan. But he could not break into the Milan first team and joined French top-flight club Monaco in January in order to stake a claim for a place in Italy's World Cup squad. This plan was scuppered by a nasty knee injury he suffered in his eighth game at Monaco.
The forward was reportedly considering quitting the game altogether a few weeks ago to take part in a celebrity reality show. Vieri is seeking to revive his fortunes by rejoining the club that helped him rise to prominence 10 years ago. He scored seven goals in 19 Serie A games for Atalanta
in the 1995-96 season, catching the eye of Juventus, which snapped him up for the following campaign.
"I'm very happy with the choice I have made," Vieri said on television after signing the one-year deal Tuesday.
"I played very well in Bergamo 10 years ago. I know Ruggeri and the set-up. It was the right choice. "I'm not bothered about the money. I've had contracts with big salaries in the past, now I'm interested in playing and nothing else".
Vieri is one of the most travelled footballers in the modern game, having played for 12 different clubs. His longest spell at any one club was his six years at Inter, where he scored 122 goals in all competitions and notched up 24 goals in 23 league matches in 2002-03. Vieri's tough, silent image has been reflected by nicknames including "the monster," "the mute" and "the Ice Man".
But he wept openly when Lazio narrowly failed to win the 1998 scudetto, and later when Italy was controversially knocked out of the 2002 World Cup by upstart South Korea. Vieri won the Cup Winners Cup with Lazio after moving from Atletico Madrid, where he netted 24 goals in 24 league
games in the 1997-98 season. The previous year, at Juve, he won the scudetto, the European Supercup and the Intercontinental Cup.
The powerful striker - named one of the world's top 125 players ever by Brazil legend Pele - has earned 49 caps and scored 23 goals for the Azzurri.
He has followed the lead of another former Italy player,Damiano Tommasi, in accepting the minimum wage in a bid to revive a flagging career.
Last season Tommasi plied his trade for AS Roma for the bare minimum as he came back from long-term injury. In the summer Tommasi signed for Spanish top-flight club Levante.
