Toni: "I want to be loved for my goals"

"In Palermo and Florence I scored goals and was loved for them. My aim is to be loved in Munich for the goals that I hope to score for the club," the 30-year-old said.

 But at the moment Toni, who cost the Bundesliga club 11 million euros (15 million dollars) a few weeks ago, is more concerned to recover from an injury than anything else.

 Hoping to be ready for Bayern's first league game against Hansa Rostock on August 11, he said he is engaged in a race against time. "I am trying everything to be ready for the start," he said.

 Bayern has already won their first honour of the season, beating Schalke in the final of the German League Cup, but his injury forced Toni sit on the sidelines

   His career though, has taught him to be patient.

 He was a late-starter to the Italian Serie A, playing his first game as a 23-year-old, long after he had already given up ever making it into Italy's top flight.

 "It was my luck that I met my girlfriend Marta when I was playing for a third division club. She was my lucky charm. After meeting her, my career just took off," he said with a smile.

 In the 2003/4 season, Toni scored 30 goals in 45 games for Palermo and helped the club gain promotion to Serie A, thereafter he became a free-scoring forward for Florence.

 He soon picked up a number of nicknames, amongst them Il Bomber. That name reminds Bayern fans of the club's all-time leading scorer Gerd Mueller, who was called Bomber and scored 365 goals for the club.

 "If they call me Il Bomber here, that will be good because that will mean that I have scored goals," the tall striker said.

 Having signed a contract till 2011, he can't wait for the start of the season. "Then you play many games and you do not have to train so much."

   Having to come back from injury, Toni has been forced to put his German lessons on hold. "I train a lot at the moment and that means that I am not really interested in learning German in the evening."

   That has prevented him from adding to the few German words he knows, although team-mate Lukas Podolski has been quick to teach him the best German swearwords.

 His lack of German has not prevented him from going out for dinner with his striking partner Miroslav Klose, who also joined Bayern at the start of the season.

 He says that the two of them, using hands and feet and a few words of English, as well as the help of a friend, had a decent 'conversation'.

 "You do not need to exchange 1,000 words to know that somebody is a sympathetic person," he explained, adding that he is confident that together with the top scorer of the 2006 World Cup he will form one of the best striking duos in Europe.

 But while his many new fans are already certain that he will finish the season as top Bundesliga scorer, Toni himself remains more cautious. "I never give a figure of how many goals I will score, I do not believe in that."

   He is not scared of the opposition though - even if he has no idea who the last top scorer in the league was (Greek striker Theofanis Gekas).

DPA