Unlucky Luca

It looked like Luca Toni had finally reached the top.

A year after winning the World Cup with Italy and finishing as top scorer in Italy's Serie A, the imposing striker from the small northern town of Pavullo nel Frignano was being paraded at Bayern Munich's Allianz-Arena and feted as one of the German giants' new breed of global stars.

Toni's signing in 2007, along with that of Franck Ribery, heralded what appeared to be a new philosophy at Bayern – paying the big bucks for the big stars. It was supposed to be the start of a new era of dominance, spearheaded by the towering forward with the matinee idol looks.

To begin with, everything went to plan. The Bayern revolution instantly brought the championship back to Munich while Toni – who soon became the best paid player in the Bundesliga – netted 24 goals to match his feat in Serie A and became the German league's top scorer.

The Italian's smile was everywhere, glittering like the silverware that his talents would surely bring to Bayern over the years to come. That smile told a heart-warming tale of a journeyman who had known the slog of the lower leagues but had finally seized his chance when the big time came calling.

Two years later, however, that smile has dimmed as has the glitter surrounding the supposed Bayern revolution. These days Toni can either be seen cutting a frustrated figure in the stands or laboring in the Bayern reserves. His rare first team appearances this season have produced a single goal and the formerly prolific and talismanic forward now queues behind a quartet of rivals in the strikers' pecking order.

So where did it all go wrong?

"In 2007 Bayern Munich were keen on buying world-class-players like Franck Ribery and Luca Toni," Patrick Strasser, sports editor and Bayern expert at Munich’s Abendzeitung newspaper, told Deutsche Welle. "Toni had a wonderful first year. Bayern won the German championship and the cup thanks to alot of splendid goals from the Italian. In his second year he struggled a bit, and seemed not to be that determined compared to his first year."

"When he first came to Bayern, he was arriving as a World Cup winner and his self-confidence was incredibly high," Fabian Jonas of German soccer magazine 11Freunde told Deutsche Welle.

"This first season came between this huge success and the disastrous European Championships where Italy – and Toni personally – failed to perform, so it was his best time. Then he had some injuries in the second season, Juergen Klinsmann – who played Toni as his main striker – was sacked and there was a strange atmosphere at Bayern. It seemed obvious then that Toni's happy time couldn't last."

Toni terrorizes Bundesliga despite Euro 2008 flop

Toni's body language suggested as much during Italy's ill-fated Euro 2008 campaign. The Azzurri's tactics left Toni as the solitary striker, often forced to chase hoofed forward balls which only added frustration to an already thankless task of leading the Italian line alone. As a result, the man who had blown Bundesliga defenses apart and who had been tipped as a potential Euro 2008 golden boot winner fired blanks.

While his second season in the Bundesliga also failed to scale the heights of his debut campaign, 14 goals in 25 appearances was still evidence enough that Toni was still a striker to be underestimated at the opposition's peril. Most foreign forwards find their second season more challenging as they are no longer an unknown quantity and defenders have caught on to their game. Despite this, Toni had proved that his threat could not be countered through studying alone.

Nothing during that second season suggested that Luca Toni's career at Bayern Munich was to go so rapidly downhill in his third.

However, the seeds of a difficult 2009/10 campaign were sown when Toni suffered a recurrence of an Achilles tendon injury in Bayern's 2-1 defeat at Hertha Berlin in February. The resulting Achilles tendonitis was kept at bay during the final three months of last season but flared up again to prevent him from participating in Bayern's pre-season preparations this summer.

Overtaken by striking rivals, shunned by coach

When Bayern's season began under new coach Louis van Gaal, Toni was still out injured. With the Italian out of action, Miroslav Klose was given the central striking role in van Gaal's formation, with Ribery and new signing Arjen Robben in support. This preferred system featuring van Gaal's favored players left Toni looking at a mountain to climb once his ankle was fixed.

"Toni is an old-school striker; really competitive in front of the goal and hard to defend against in the box," said Strasser. "But he always has difficulties to control the ball, to pass it properly, and to be a part of the system. That is why Bayern bought Mario Gomez. This is the German striker of the future, although he is not a regular member of the starting line-up in these days."

"Van Gaal prefers to play with a 4-4-3 formation," said Jonas. "This means that Robben and Ribery support Klose up front. Van Gaal likes Klose and will play him as the central striker when he can. Mario Gomez is too much like Toni and Thomas Mueller operates in a more forward midfield role. Toni faces a lot of hard work to get back into the team. And of course there is some kind of personality clash between him and van Gaal. Toni is a happy-go-lucky guy while van Gaal is a strict, workmanlike character. It's obvious that there is some friction there."

That friction was most evident when Toni recovered from his injury in September but still couldn't get into the team. He couldn't even get into the squad at times, having to watch with frustration from the stands and getting his playing time in Bayern reserve team games in the second division.

"A certain amount of time has passed since my injury and I feel really good again, just like my first year at Bayern," Toni told the Bild newspaper earlier in October. "I suffer a lot when I have to sit in the stands. I have been out of the starting 11 for three or four months now. That never happened to me in my career, except at Brescia after a broken ankle."

Toni's frustration led to the usual transfer speculation with a return to Italy with AC Milan, Roma, or Napoli – depending on which newspaper you read – his likely destination. But just as it seemed Toni was going to end his Bayern career in ignominy, he was back in the first team.

Luca looking to take his chances

While he didn't score on his return against Freiburg two weeks ago, his performance suggested Toni was a man on a mission. Whether it was to reclaim his place at the spearhead of Bayern's attack or to impress potential suitors ahead of the January transfer window, it's hard to say.

"When you look at Toni's play against Frankfurt, you can see that he was working harder than he has for a long time," said Jonas. "He didn't score but he showed his quality. Toni just wants to play. He has a big season ahead of him if he wants to play in the World Cup with Italy in the summer. Whether he will play for Bayern or another team, I can't say. He won't get a better contract elsewhere than he has at Bayern, that's for sure. Wherever he plays, given a run in the team, he'll find his form. If you play Luca Toni, he will score. It's just a matter of time."

"It is quite likely that Toni leaves Bayern at the end of the season and returns to Serie A," said Strasser. "On the one hand, he's not that world-class striker any more, and on the other Bayern would be glad to save some money. Toni earns more than Ribery, Robben or Gomez."

Whether Bayern's hierarchy has the patience to persevere with Toni and reap the benefits, or if he moves on and rediscovers his scoring boots at another team, only time will tell. One thing is for sure, as his career to date has shown: no-one should write-off Luca Toni.

Author: Nick Amies
Editor: Chuck Penfold