Italy:
Bati vows to pay back Roma !
Argentine striker Gabriel Batistuta has vowed to deliver in goals what Italian Serie A side AS Roma plans to pay him in cash.
'I don't know if I'll be the best paid player in the world, I only want to join a winning team and I'll deliver goals for Roma,' Batistuta told reporters at the Etoile Hotel in Buenos Aires' exclusive Recoleta barrio.
Argentina's record goal scorer declined to discuss the amount Roma will pay him but Italian newspapers reported 'Batigol' would earn .8million (£3.9m) a year.
'I'm surprised and feel proud that they're paying so much money for me, I'm 31 ... but they bought my goals and I hope to deliver what they contracted me for,' he added.
Inter Milan, who qualified for next season's Champions league last week, and new Italian champions Lazio, Roma's city rivals, also tried to woo Batistuta.
'In the short term, Roma could be the team that puts me in the ideal conditions to deliver my maximum in the final years of my career,' Batistuta said.
'I've spoken a lot with (Roma president) Franco Sensi and he provided me with some of the details (coach) Fabio Capello is planning and they're betting heavily on winning a championship, just like I am,' he said, adding, 'because playing for Fiorentina I couldn't reach that goal.'
Batistuta had spent nine years playing for Italian Serie A side Fiorentina, scoring 168 goals in 269 league appearances to break the club record set by Swede Kurt Hamrin in the 1950s.
He returned to Argentina last Wednesday to join the national team for a 2002 World Cup qualifier against Bolivia at Buenos Aires' River Plate stadium on June 4.
The former Boca Juniors player, a cross-town rival of River Plate, said he was eager to take part in the rivalry with Lazio in Rome.
'Playing against Lazio will be something beautiful, something you see in few parts of the world ... something like a River Plate-Boca match,' he said.
Batistuta said he did not plan to return to Florence for a farewell but added that he will miss the team he joined from Boca Juniors in 1991 for .3 million, which will 'be in my heart.'
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Ronaldo keen to return !
Injured Brazil international Ronaldo is aiming to play again by the end of the year.
'The doctors have said I could be back eight months after the operation and that is what I am aiming for,' he told a news conference.
Ronaldo tore the tendon in his right knee in an attempted comeback match for Serie A side Inter Milan on April 12. It was his first game since sustaining a similar injury six months earlier.
Responding to a battery of questions about his recovery programme on Monday, Ronaldo said: 'I have to admit that I was really down for about two weeks after suffering the injury.
'I was asking myself whether I might have been at fault in some way.'
But he insisted he had never questioned his future in the game. 'Everyone faces problems in their life or their careers but it is knowing how to overcome them that holds the key to real greatness.'
Ronaldo, who underwent surgery in Paris last month, said he was aiming for complete rest during his three months in Brazil and was looking forward to spending a lot of time with his baby son Ronald.
The only break from this routine will be monthly visits to France for specialist treatment.
'All I need to now is the patience to allow myself to recover in my own time,' said Ronaldo.
He said his doctors were pleased with the beginning of the healing process after the operation. He is undergoing daily physiotherapy.
'Modern medicine gives me the chance to return as I was, or perhaps even better. I know I will play again,' said Ronaldo.
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