Gonzalo Higuain, an Indestructible of European Football

It was an evening of vindication. Yes, another one. On a day when Gonzalo Higuain reached the 100-goal mark in Serie A having already done so in La Liga (as Marca in English notes, only Zlatan Ibrahimovic has hit a century in two of Europe’s top five leagues in the last 20 years), it felt as if the Argentina forward was proving his worth all again.

Should a player with those numbers really have to do so? Regardless of whether that should really be the case, this is Higuain’s lot in his footballing life. Ever since arriving in Europe as a 19-year-old, mid-season in 2006-07, El Pipita has always had to fight hard for acknowledgement and recognition.

Having come into Saturday’s gala meeting with Milan at San Siro with a relatively modest four Serie A goals this season, the Juventus forward was in one of those familiar moments where his worth was being questioned. He responded by deciding the game courtesy of two deadly finishes, the unerringness of which few in the world game would be able to match. Still, one suspects, some naysayers will retort that he ‘only’ scores goals.

At the start, that wasn’t even evident. After leaving River Plate for Real Madrid in December 2006 for the then quite onerous fee of €12 million, the teenage Higuain looked callow, and unlikely to make big contributions immediately. He was quickly given the nickname of ‘Igualin’, a pun on his name meaning samey or unremarkable, by fans—and, according to reports including this one by Sid Lowe in the Guardian, inside the dressing room too.

This was a different Real Madrid, before the return of Florentino Perez to the presidency—a team that rallied to take the title under Fabio Capello, but hardly a memorable vintage. Higuain scored just twice in his opening half-season at the club, though they were vital strikes; an equaliser to take a point from Atletico at the Vicente Calderon, and a last-minute winner as El Real came back from 3-1 down to beat Espanyol on the home strait towards the title.

To use this willing but green version of Higuain to represent his time at the Santiago Bernabeu would be grossly unfair, but his first passage in white did come to define a widespread view of him in the Spanish capital. If it was acknowledged (grudgingly, in some quarters) that he contributed, he was never really loved or, for many, rated at all.

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In this context, it bears repeating that Higuain scored in excess of 20 La Liga goals in three separate seasons—two of which were after the re-election of Perez and the dawn of the second galactico era, which immediately ushered in Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Kaka. The return cult of the superstar should have ushered Higuain out the door, but he refused to let go straight away. It wasn’t until summer 2013 that he moved to Napoli.

At that point, the heat was back on, despite leaving the pressure cooker of the Bernabeu. It was a typical Real Madrid sale, with €40 million banked for a player no longer considered important, a template fitting in with the later deals with Mesut Ozil and Angel Di Maria. For the first time since leaving South America, Higuain was going to be considered the go-to guy. It is not coincidental, with the way in which he responded to that weight almost immediately, that it has been in Serie A where Higuain has become really valued.

“I think he's relished being The Man,” Italian football expert Paolo Bandini told Bleacher Report. “Although he very clearly does not enjoy some aspects of the media scrutiny that comes with it, he is a player who loves the responsibility of scoring goals - and you can't do that from the bench.”

The fee was a significant one for Napoli too. It may seem like relative chicken feed now—especially in the light of Juve subsequently paying more than double that to snatch him away in the summer of 2016—but just as with when he left River, it was an investment of some consequence.

“In Naples he was an instant superstar,” continued Bandini, “and the kind of big-money transfer that the club hadn't really made since Maradona. Sure, he is now Juve's most expensive signing of all time, too, but they're a club accustomed to thinking of themselves as part of the global elite.”

Higuain adapted to his role as primary goalgetter brilliantly, with the apex his 36 Serie A goals in 2015-16, eclipsing the legendary Gunnar Nordahl’s 66-year-old single-season record, recorded for Milan, in the final match of the campaign against Frosinone. Yet the centre-forward made it about more than just the goals, genuinely succeeding Edinson Cavani as the club’s talisman.

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It was the way that Higuain fought, argued, and refused to give in. Everything he had done throughout his career, in fact, just in a more expressive way. When he let out his exasperation on the San Paolo pitch after Napoli’s win over Arsenal wasn’t enough to seal qualification to the next stage of the Champions League in December 2013, the locals felt his pain. Even when he lost it at Udinese in April 2016, costing him a red card and almost the chance to reach Nordahl’s record, it just showed how much he cared, and how much of a fighter he was.

Higuain refused to be cowed either by the misses that some continued to use to characterise him—and there were big ones for Argentina in particular, in the 2014 World Cup final against Germany and against Chile in the following year’s Copa America final. That he pulled his record-breaking season out of the hat directly after the disappointment of Santiago says a lot.

So does his subsequent decision to move on and up to Turin, rather than fulfil what many saw as his destiny, to surpass his countryman Maradona’s club goalscoring record at Napoli. Higuain knew he would face opprobrium by joining Juve, and chose to accept the challenge anyway. Rather than simply coping with difficulty, he seems to almost thrive on it.

“At Napoli,” noted Bandini, “every success was still part of this giddy new ride, whereas in Turin they expect to win all the time. The ease with which he kept up his strike rate in a new setting helped to erase any suspicions that he had simply been a product of a system built around him in Naples, and to cement him in Italian minds as one of the world's truly elite goalscorers.”

Higuain is also ready to change opinions on the European stage, as he began to last season. He only had two goals in 24 Champions League knockout ties until the vital brace he notched in the semi-final first leg against Monaco last season. With his 30^th birthday approaching this month, one suspects that the competition will be his focus once again. His goal against Sporting Clube de Portugal on Tuesday earned Juve a point and kept them on course for the knockout stages.

Some will always except Higuain from elite company. There is no reason, however, to suppose that he or his goals will become any less of a feature in the big games that punctuate Europe’s calendar. He has always been a fighter, and will continue to be.