Udinese veteran striker Antonio Di Natale revealed he would have loved to play for Liverpool as he bids to write another page in his impressive personal history in Italy’s top flight.

Di Natale, one of Serie A’s most successful ever strikers, will take his league goals tally to 200 if he scores away to Palermo on what will be his 400th league appearance today.

Had he followed through with a decision to retire at the end of last season, the 37-year-old Napolitan’s 200-goal dream would have died along with his faint hopes of a final World Cup appearance with Italy in Brazil last summer.

Instead, Di Natale—who scored 11 goals in 42 appearances for the Azzurri—has turned his attention to at least matching the 205-goal tally of Italian great Roberto Baggio. Having spent his entire career in Italy with only two clubs, Empoli and Udinese, Di Natale admits a spell at Liverpool was among his few regrets.

“The only team that I would have loved to play for, for the atmosphere and the stadium, is Liverpool,” Di Natale said in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport’s Sportweek magazine. “When they took (Andrea) Dossena to Liverpool in 2008, there was talk of me going as well. But then nothing happened.”

Alongside Roma playmaker Francesco Totti, Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and Verona striker Luca Toni, Di Natale is among a handful of ‘golden oldies’ still plying their trade in Serie A.

Di Natale admits trying to match Totti’s current mark of 237 goals is beyond him. Silvio Piola, who retired in 1954, holds Serie A’s all-time goals record of 274. “Totti and I are the only players born in 1977 still playing in the league. He’s doing great, I couldn’t imagine matching him,” he said.

A “huge admirer” of Diego Maradona, Di Natale says he has been dreaming of matching Baggio’s 205-goal mark since he went back on a decision to retire at the end of last season.

Di Natale explained: “I returned home last January and told my wife, ‘it’s time to retire’. She didn’t seem very convinced. And then my son Filippo just laughed at me. Maybe he had an idea how it would end up. Since our first training session this summer I’ve been dreaming of equalling Baggio’s tally of 205 goals.”

For Serie A aficionados, Baggio’s achievement—the bulk of his goals came in a five-year spell with Juventus—may carry more prestige. But Di Natale said: “When a player like Baggio looks you in the eye and tells you you’re at his level, I can be satisfied with what I’ve achieved.”

Despite playing for Udinese, a club that has neither won the Italian league or Cup, Di Natale has won Serie A’s ‘Capocannoniere’ top scorer award two years in succession. In 2010 he scored 29 league goals to leave Inter’s Diego Milito (22) a distant second and then hit the net 28 times to leave Uruguayan Edinson Cavani, then of Napoli, second by just two goals.

Although he said he owes “everything to Silvio Baldini, who gave me my first chance at Empoli”, he admits Maradona has been his idol since childhood.  “I’ve always admired him, even though his lifestyle has been totally different from mine. But Diego is a top player, and when you’re among the best everything is allowed,” added Di Natale.

“In saying that, there’s a message written on the wall at my football school which says, ‘any parent who thinks they have a little Diego, please take them straight back home.”

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