What springs to mind when you think of an AC Milan centre-forward? People of a certain age will immediately be reminded of Marco van Basten, an intelligent and technically gifted striker. The Dutchman was far from the only world class centre-forward to wear the red and black. In the fifties there was the Swede Gunner Nordahl, Milan's all-time goalscorer, and a decade later the Brasilian José Altafini stalked the San Siro. After Van Basten greats like Shevchenko, Weah and Inzaghi played for Milan. These days Ibrahimovic is spending his dotage there.
What few people will probably come up with when conjuring up a mental image of a Milan forward, is a classic British target-man. The kind that would long ago have lost his front teeth in some ill-fated areal duel. Yet that is exactly what AC Milan set out to take the Serie A by storm with back in 1981, after spending a year in the Serie B due to a betting scandal.