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The Serie A is often regarded as a tough league to play in, as teams tend to play compact tactical football which doesn't augur well for creative players to flourish.
Nevertheless, South American players, often renowned for their flair, have found success in the Serie A over the years.
Ten most prolific South American goal-scorers in the Serie A
The Serie A all-time goal-scoring chart is expectedly dominated by Italian players. However, several South American players, some of them active, have scored over 100 goals in the Italian top flight.
On that note, let's have a look at the ten most prolific Serie A goal-scorers hailing from the South American continent.
#10 Antonio Angelillo (Argentina) - 98 goals
Nicknamed the 'Angel with the Dirty Face' after a training session in a muddy pitch, Antonio Agnelillo had a decade-long stint in the Serie A during the late 50s and early 60s.
The attacking midfielder played for four different Serie A clubs - Inter Milan, AS Roma, Calcio Lecco and AC Milan, winning his lone title in the competition with the Rossoneri in his final Serie A season in 1967-68.
Gianni Brera, a celebrated journalist, wrote about Agnelillo:
"He'd played in defence, in midfield and in attack. He scored goals and constructed moves. Any other phenomenon would have ended up dead at that rate."
Angelillo, unfortunately, passed away at the age of 80 in Buenos Aires in 2018.
#9 Sergio Clerici (Brazil) - 104 goals
In a storied near two-decade-long Serie A career, Sergio Clerici played for seven different clubs in the competition.
A quintessential journeyman, a term that was not popular in his playing days in the 60s and late 70s, Clerici never stayed with the same Serie A team for more than two seasons.
Nevertheless, the Brazilian centre-forward racked up a century of goals in the competition, with his most productive spell (31 goals) coming during his two-season stint at Napoli.
#8 Dino Da Costa (Brazil/Italy) - 106 goals
Dino Da Costa started his Serie A career with AS Roma, for whom he scored 70 goals in six seasons in the late 50s and early 60s. It was an impressive goal tally for the Brazilian player, who also held an Italian passport.
Da Costa later played two seasons with Atalanta, scoring 18 Serie A goals, before winding down his Italian top-flight career with a three-season stint at Juventus from 1963 to 1966.
The midfielder, who never won the Serie A title, was the top-scorer in the competition in 1956-57, scoring 22 goals.
Unfortunately, Da Costa passed away at the age of 89 in Verona last year.
#7 Edinson Cavani (Uruguay) - 112 goals
It was in the Serie A where Edinson Cavani first cut his teeth in European football.
Joining Palermo in the 2006-07 season when he was still a teenager, Cavani scored 34 Serie A goals in four seasons to catch the attention of Napoli.
He had a prosperous three-season stint at the southern club, scoring a fabulous 78 goals. Cavani scored a league-leading 29 goals in his final Serie A campaign in 2012-13, helping Napoli to second place in the league table.
Cavani left for PSG in the summer of 2013, where he scored exactly 200 goals in seven seasons to become the club's all-time top-scorer. Now at Manchester United, the 34-year-old has already scored seven times in 17 league games.
#5 Abel Balbo (Argentina) - 118 Serie A goals
Abel Balbo began his Serie A campaign with Udinese in 1989-90. He had a modest first season in the competition with 11 goals, but his 21-goal Serie A season in 1990-91 paved the way for a move to AS Roma.
In four glorious seasons with the Serie A giants, the Argentine centre-forward scored a fabulous tally of 64 goals, one of them being a fabulous hat-trick against Juventus.
After season-long stints at Parma and Fiorentina, Balbo returned to Roma and won the 2000-01 Serie A title. But the player's contribution was negligible, as he scored no goals in two league appearances.
In his prime, the 1990 FIFA World Cup runner-up was a lethal striker because of his ability to 'sniff' out goals, drift into spaces to evade his marker and open up passing lanes for teammates.
#5 Mauro Icardi (Argentina) - 112 goals
Mauro Icardi arrived in the Serie A when he was still a teenager, scoring ten goals for Sampdoria in his debut season in the competition.
That was enough to catch the attention of Inter Milan, who snapped him up in the summer of 2013. Although he had modest returns in his first Serie A campaign for the Nerazzurri, the then 21-year-old Icardi scored 22 goals in 2014-15 to become one of the youngest Capocannoniere winners.
Returns of 16 and 24 goals respectively followed in his next two Serie A seasons. Icardi then produced a 29-goal Serie A campaign in 2018-19 to win his second Capocannoniere award and help Inter return to the Champions League for the first time in seven years.
However, things soon turned sour for the then Inter captain, who joined French champions PSG in the summer of 2020.
#4 Gonzalo Higuain (Argentina) - 125 goals
After a productive stint at Real Madrid, Gonzalo Higuain landed on Italian shores in the summer of 2013.
In his first two Serie A campaigns with Napoli, the Argentine forward produced goal tallies of 17 and 18 before stepping it up a notch in his third. Higuain doubled his Serie A goal haul in a glorious 2015-16 season, becoming the first player to score 36 goals in an Italian top-flight campaign.
Serial Serie A champions Juventus came calling and shelled out €90 million to procure his services.
Higuain had a decent stint with the Bianconeri, scoring 24 and 16 goals respectively in his first two seasons to help Juventus win their fifth and sixth consecutive Serie A titles.
However, his goal returns soon diminished, and Higuain left Juventus at the end of the 2019-20 campaign.
#3 Hernan Crespo (Argentina) - 153 Serie A goals
During a glorious 15-season stint in the Serie A, Hernan Crespo turned out for five different clubs.
Although he had his most prolific Serie A campaign with Lazio in 2000-01, scoring 26 goals to win the Capocannonieri award, it was with Inter Milan where he won the Serie A title.
He scored only 27 Serie A goals in four seasons with the Nerazzurri but won a trio of titles in the competition (2006-07 to 2008-09). Crespo scored his 153rd and final Serie A goal for his first Italian club Parma.
#2 Luis Vinicio (Brazil) - 155 goals
Luis Vinicio is the most prolific Brazilian goal-scorer in the history of the Serie A. He had a productive decade-long stint in the competition with four different clubs in the late 50s and early 60s.
After scoring 69 Serie A goals in five seasons with Napoli, the Brazilian forward enjoyed moderate success with Bologna before flourishing in his next stint.
In four seasons with Vicenza Virtus (now a Serie B club), Vinicio scored 61 Serie A goals, with his best campaign in the competition being a 25-goal outing in the 1965-66 season.
#1 Gabriel Batistuta (Argentina) - 183 goals
Gabriel Batistuta is the most prolific South American goal-scorer in Serie A history.
With 183 goals in 318 games, the Argentine centre-forward stands 12th in the all-time Serie A goal-scoring list.
Nicknamed 'Batigol' for his keen eye for goal, Batistuta was one of the iconic strikers in the Serie A in the 1990s. In his 12-season stint in the Serie A, eight of whom were for AS Roma, Batistuta tallied double-digit goals in all but three of his campaigns.
His 26-goal tally in the 1994-95 Serie A season won him the Capocannoniere award, while his only title in the competition came with AS Roma in 2000-01.
