Roma Legend Totti
Looking To Inspire Roma In Europe
Personal information
Full name: Francesco Totti
Date of birth: 27 September 1976
Age: 38
Place of birth: Rome, Italy
Height: 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Playing position: Attacking midfielder
Club information
Current team: Roma
Number: 10
Youth career 1984: Fortitudo
1984–1986: Smit Trastevere
1986–1989: Lodigiani
1989–1992: Roma
Senior career1992– Roma: 565 Appearances, 236 goals
National team 1992 Italy: U15 6 Appearances, 3 goals
1991–1992: Italy U16 13 Appearances, 2 goals
1993–1995: Italy U18 14 Appearances, 7 goals
1995–1997: Italy U21 8 Appearances, 4 goals
1997 Italy: U23 4 Appearances, 2 Goals
1998–2006: Italy 58 Appearances, 9 goals
It’s been quite the journey for Roma’s veteran Francesco Totti. The Roma
icon’s record on English soil is bewilderingly bad but against all odds the
Italian playmaker scored the equalizer in a 1-1 draw away to Man City in the
Champions League a fort night ago.
Totti turned 38 on 27 September but his
contract runs through until June 2016 and he has spoken of his ambition to play
on until the age of 40. Why not? He’s enjoying himself in a Roma team that’s
not only back in the Champions League but sits second in Serie A after an
imperious start to the season that’s seen them win five of their six matches.
Wednesdays’s trip to Germany will be the biggest test yet. Surely Bayern fans
would begrudge the old master turning it on.
In the 23rd minute of Roma’s visit to Manchester City, Totti
was put through on goal by Radja Nainggolan and he proceeded to lift a
beautiful lob over Joe Hart to become the oldest scorer in the competition’s
history. This also proved to be Totti’s first Champions League goal in nearly
four years, the last was against Bayern Munich in November 2010.
Francesco
Totti’s Roma legend has grown since making his debut for the Serie A side as a
17-year-old. Twenty years ago, Totti scored for the first time for Roma,
capitalising on a knock-down to slot home against Foggia. Since then, Totti has
amassed 236 goals for the club and has become an iconic figure in Rome. He’s
also became a rare figure of club solidarity, never leaving Roma since his
debut.
Every great player is a product of his age, a cultural touchstone
created by his surroundings, the style of the day, the support he gets and no
small amount of serendipity. Francesco Totti’s story is the stuff of football
fairytale, even if by today’s reductive, win-driven standards, it might not
seem so at first.
He’s only lifted the Scudetto once and the biggest team he
has played for is Roma. He’s never won the Champions League and has never even
won the Ballon d’Or. But vacuous talk of big-money moves, trophies won and
individual awards all miss the point when it comes to true greatness. They’re
too easily quantifiable. Try as you might, you can’t count talent, or tally up
ability.
To appreciate a player’s true worth, you must see past the medals. To know true
greatness is simply to look on it. Like true love, you just know when you know.
Totti’s talent has an immense, almost reckless, natural quality. And it’s been
on constant show for the world to see, ever since 28 March 1993.
Call it an
Indian summer, or a swan song, but this season we’re seeing a revival of one of
the last great fantasisti (great Italian number 10’s), and football fans around
the world should rejoice in that, because there’s no one else like him. He’s
not the quickest, or the strongest. He’s prone to injury, and at 38, who knows
what the future holds for his aging bones.
Others players are less
idiosyncratic, and throughout the season will be more prolific. But his game’s
never been about prolificacy, even though he is the Serie A’s second highest
goalscorer after spending half his career in midfield. His gift has always been
the ability to create, when no one else could.
While Totti was the top scorer in
2006/07 and the winner of the European Golden Shoe for his 26 Serie A goals,
the veteran is now more provider than goalscorer. Just 38 goals short of Silvio
Piola’s Italian record, the emphasis has shifted nevertheless. Nobody had more
Serie A assists last year despite him starting only 20 matches. His current
role seems to be suiting him.
The return to Champions League action after an
absence of three-and-a-half years was a glorious triumph with Totti pulling the
strings in a convincing 5-1 win over CSKA Moscow at the Stadio Olimpico.
Playing as a withdrawn striker with the pace of Gervinho and, initially, Juan
Iturbe cutting in off wings, the Russian side had no answer.
The restrictions
of an ageing body mean that this performance in Europe was one of only six outings
so far this season. Coach Rudi Garcia is managing his work load with the
Champions League in mind. Importantly, Roma are winning with and without him.
Totti’s art has been to entertain and inspire a city for two decades and to
dazzle crowds around the world. It’s not every player, after all, who gets
standing ovations from the opposition’s fans. No one else could replace him.
Here, he’s fuoriclasse—beyond classification. He is, as the announcer in the
Stadio Olimpico puts it, both the No. 10 and the No. 1.