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EURO 2008: Mutu aiming for ultimate high

Adrian Mutu has known literally the ups and downs in a remarkable career and at Euro 2008 he will hope that the ultimate high in terms of European international soccer will be experienced with Romania being crowned champions of their continent.

The 29-year-old has come back from a seven-month suspension for taking cocaine during an unhappy spell at Premiership giants Chelsea to becoming indispensable to revived Serie A outfit Fiorentina, for whom he has scored 16 times this season and once again shown that under coach Cesare Prandelli he is more than an effective player.

Prandelli had been in charge of Parma when Mutu, scorer of 27 goals in 60 internationals, landed there after a difficult time at Inter followed by a loan spell at Verona, but he flourished under the Parma coach — who persuaded the board to outlay 4 million euros (US$6.2 million) for him — scoring 21 times and getting Parma into the UEFA Cup. However, while Parma have slid ever further down the table, his goalscoring exploits enticed big spending Chelsea to pay 22.4 million euros for him.

Thence did he descend into the hell of cocaine and problems with his marriage, as he was caught cavorting with a pornographic film star from Romania, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho did not take to him and relegated the man from the small Romanian village of Calinesti, who made his professional debut in 1996-1997 at the age of 18.

Juventus took the gamble to take him on and then totally out of his control he saw the “Old Lady” of Italian soccer relegated to Serie B over a match-fixing scandal.

They perhaps did him the greatest favor by selling him on to Fiorentina seven months later, where he hooked up with Prandelli again and he has never looked back since.

“For me Prandelli is a brother, a father figure and a friend at the same time,” said Mutu, who was named best foreign player of Serie A last year and is known as the “Phenomenon” by the Fiorentina fans.

For others the bad years are forgotten.

“Yes, what were they?” Romania coach Victor Piturca said

“Now he has familial stability, maturity and experience,” added Piturca, who was referring to Mutu’s second marriage which saw him have a third child — the first two were from the first marriage — last month.

For Mircea Sandu, president of the Romanian Football Federation, Mutu is simply a player out of this world.

“He [Mutu] is for me the best striker in the world, capable of making a difference, in terms of upping the pace of a match, a dribble or a shot which is stopped,” Sandu said.
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