Abel Balbo (born June 1, 1966, in Empalme Villa
Constitución, Santa Fe) is a former Argentine football striker,
the all-time leading foreign goalscorer in Italy's Serie A.
On the club level, Balbo played for Newell's Old Boys (1987-88),
River Plate (1988-89), before moving to Italy and Udinese
(1989-93), Roma (1993-98 and 2000-02), Parma (1998-99), and
Fiorentina. He played four games for Boca Juniors before finally
retiring. He scored a total of 138 goals in Serie A; his best
seasons came in 1990-91 for Udiense and 1994-95 for Roma, with
22 goals in each of them.
For Argentina, Balbo scored 11 goals in 37 caps, and played at
the 1990 and the 1994 World Cups and the 1989 and 1995 Copas
América. At the 1995 tournament in Uruguay, Balbo partnered
Gabriel Batistuta in attack, and scored a goal against Brazil's
Claudio Taffarel in a quarterfinal game that Argentina lost 1-2
after a controversial, game-winning hand-helped goal by Túlio
Costa.
After his retirement, Balbo eventually became an musician by
performing songs in Italian and Spanish. |
