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(FIFAworldcup.com) January seems to bring out the best in Hernan Crespo. This time last year, he hit top form with former club AC Milan. Now, 12 months on and after several false dawns, he appears to be finally back to his best for English side Chelsea.

With just five months to go before Argentina's opening Group C game at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany?, Crespo's renaissance has brought some much-needed cheer to national coach Jose Pekerman, who has had his preparations hampered by injuries to several key men and the lack of first-team football being obtained by others.

Crespo's situation had been of particular concern. After a successful loan spell with Italian giants Milan in 2004/05, he was recalled to London where many felt he would be Chelsea's second-choice striker behind Didier Drogba. However, such has been the form of the 30-year-old Argentine that manager Jose Mourinho has been obliged to alternate him with the Côte d'Ivoire star - a player Crespo will be going head-to-head with in Argentina's Germany 2006 opener in Hamburg on 10 June.

If recent form is anything to go by, it should be quite a duel. Since 19 November, Crespo has scored in his club's wins over Newcastle United, Anderlecht, Portsmouth, Fulham, Birmingham City and West Ham. In the last of those matches, on 2 January, he took just 45 seconds to find the target after taking the field as a substitute. Not surprisingly the explosive finishing of the all-time leading goalscorer in South American FIFA World Cup qualifying has seen him win over the Chelsea fans, with his talents being hailed on the terraces with chants of "There's only one Hernan Crespo".

For all of that, the sharpshooter is keen to pay tribute to the role of his team-mates in his success. "I'm not the only one," he says. "We're where we are today because all of us are playing well."

Crucial strikes

From the moment he burst onto the Argentine football scene with River Plate in the early 90s, Crespo quickly earned a reputation not just for his goalscoring, but for his ability to find the net at key moments. "I don't consider myself an out-and-out striker," the youngster famously said at just 18, although time would prove otherwise. He was leading scorer in the Argentine league in 1994, and then took the top-scorer award at the 1996 Olympic Football Tournament in Atlanta with the Albiceleste.

His finishing has been instrumental in bringing silverware to several of his teams, as proved by the two goals he grabbed for River Plate against America de Cali when they last won the Copa Libertadores in 1996, and his goal for Parma in their 3-0 UEFA Cup final victory over Marseille in 1999. Then in 2000, he was the subject of a then world-record transfer with his 57million dollar move from Parma to Lazio, and followed that with the Serie A top-scorer award in 2001 with 26 goals.

Crespo showed again last May he was the man for the big occasion, scoring twice in the 2005 UEFA Champions League final, which his AC Milan side lost in the most dramatic fashion to Liverpool. Until recently there were only glimpses of the vintage Crespo at Chelsea but with Germany 2006 looming on the horizon, the player's resurgence could not have come at a better time.

Germany the goal

Back in July 2002 after Argentina's shock first-round elimination in Korea/Japan, Crespo spoke in brutally honest terms about its impact: "For four years, all you do is get up, eat, train and play. Your everyday life becomes an obsession with the World Cup. That's why it is so hard to get over the disappointment of having failed to achieve our goal. What I really want is revenge and the chance to play another World Cup." Now, after two previous finals appearances in the shadow of Gabriel Batistuta, it seems that Crespo's time has come, with a starting place in the Albiceleste line-up almost within reach.

"Crespo will be in the squad to travel to the World Cup and will start if he's fit and playing well." So says his coach Pekerman, who is hoping the striker can add to the seven goals he got in qualifying and those plundered in recent friendlies against, among others, Germany and England.

Twenty years ago, Jorge Valdano scored one of the goals that fired Argentina to their last win in a FIFA World Cup Final. Now, Valdanito, as Crespo is known because of his resemblance to the former international, has the chance to emulate that achievement. "The Argentine people can rest easy," says Crespo confidently. "We have what it takes to play a major role."