“His quality has always been obvious, and therefore what he’s doing now is normal for him,” Fabio Quagliarella’s former teammate Luis Muriel declared before the two forwards faced each other in Florence last Sunday. “He’s a fantastic player and doing such things at his age is very difficult. Having said that, I played alongside him and he always did run much more than me!” 

Muriel would go on to fire in two goals in his home league debut for Fiorentina, while his former partner in the Sampdoria attack also ended the game with a brace, as the scores ended up tied at three apiece.

The Colombian was indeed correct about Quagliarella’s workrate, a factor that has not diminished despite the fact that the Naples-born player will turn 36 at the end of the month. His brace versus Fiorentina was the 10th game in a row in which he has found the back of the net, meaning that if he does so again during this weekend’s fixture at home to Udinese, he will equal a record that was set back in 1994.

It is Gabriel Batistuta—who became the world’s most expensive player over 30 when A.S. Roma signed him for €36.2 million in 2000—who currently holds the record for most consecutive games with a goal with 11, a feat that Quagliarella will undoubtedly be looking to surpass. 

Just as the Argentine made a huge impact on Italian football throughout the 1990s and up to his only Scudetto winning season with Roma in 2001, Quagliarella will also go down as one of the true greats of Serie A. By December 2019, the latter had scored goals against no less than 37 different clubs in Serie A, further promoting his longevity and consistent form. 

Yet while “Batigol” suffered from terrible injuries that vastly affected his form by the end of his career, Quagliarella’s twilight years have proven to be quite the opposite. The Sampdoria striker currently sits in joint-top position in the Serie A scoring charts along with Duvan Zapata and Cristiano Ronaldo, his 14 total goals already having surpassed his highest-ever single season scoring tally of 13. 

Here is a player who is not made from the same mold as the likes of Mauro Icardi, the veteran never having reached anywhere near his 29 goals fired in during 2017-18. Quagliarella is not a goal poacher or a tap-in merchant, but more of an all-round entertainer, his strikes often spectacular and therefore understandably of a lower frequency.  

This season has seen the 35-year-old hit double figures in back-to-back campaigns for the first time since 2010, and it doesn’t seem like he is in any mood to stop during this record-breaking year of 2019.  

The revelation that a secret stalker nightmare overshadowed his whole life during the five years after he was forced to leave Napoli in 2010 seems to have lifted a weight from his shoulders, the striker now appearing much more carefree after the perpetrator was sentenced to jail.

 Sampdoria, too, are clearly keen to keep their prized antique with them for a little while longer yet, having recently agreed a contract that will keep Quagliarella in his adopted Genoa home until 2020.

“Quagliarella lights up Sampdoria like the lighthouse in the bay of Genoa,” Samp Sporting Director Carlo Osti told Sky Italia. “Aside from his technical qualities on the field, we want to underline his great qualities as a man, as he helps the team and works with the younger players to aid their development. That is also why we decided to renew his contract.”

Those are beautiful words for a man who is so appreciated by all those who follow the Blucerchiati, and still Fabio Quagliarella “lights up” the whole of Italian football, too. 

Chloe Beresford specializes in Serie A for a number of outlets and can be found on Twitter and on Facebook via her page CalcioByChloe.