An ode to Francesco Totti, The Last Emperor of Rome
“Totti is what every child dreams of being when they grow up. A fan that becomes a champion, a champion that becomes a symbol, a symbol that becomes a legend.’ - Roberto Baggio
In July 64AD during the time of the emperor Nero, Rome burned. The great fire lasted for five days and of the 14 districts, three were completely destroyed, seven were severely damaged with only four escaping the flames.
It was an event that shaped the history of the city, and its lasting legacy is still felt to this day. Both in how Rome was reconstructed and also in the turn of phrase ‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned’ to signify willful negligence (he most likely didn’t play the fiddle given it wasn’t invented till much later).
1953 years later on the 17th of July 2017, Rome burned once again. But this time it was not a physical fire, but one of passion and emotion.
For on that day in front of a packed Stadio Olympico, Francesco Totti would announce his retirement from football, and like the inferno that ravaged the city centuries ago, it would leave a lasting effect on the population.
"Who are the best five Italian players? Totti, Totti, Totti, Totti, Totti."
From those words you can tell Totti’s former manager Zdenek Zeman is probably his biggest fan. In every interview he’s ever done about the player, you can hear the pure admiration in his voice as he speaks about the prodigal talent he helped to foster into one of the greatest Italian players of all time.
But after Zeman, next on the list are the people of Rome. After a 3-2 win against Genoa to end the club’s Serie A campaign, Totti was given the chance to stand in front of all the fans who had supported and been inspired by him and say thank you.
The King of Rome did not want to give up his crown, but his body was abdicating for him. At 40, he had pushed himself to his physical limit and now he needed to let go.
Words have power, but sometimes this is due to the people that say them, and as he spoke nearly 73,000 people fell completely silent. The only noises were the frequent bursts of rapturous applause as Totti paused regularly to stop himself from becoming overwhelmed by emotion.
This is what Totti meant to football and to Rome. But what he would go on to say would explain what football meant to him:
“Today time came at my door saying: We have to grow up. From tomorrow onwards you will be old. Take off your shorts and shoes because from today you’re a man, and you won’t be able to smell the grass of the pitch from this close. The sun in your eyes when you’re running towards the goal. The adrenaline that consumes you and the satisfaction in celebrating.
“I’ve asked myself in these last months “Why are they waking me up from this dream?” Do you remember when you were kids and you were dreaming something beautiful? And your mother wakes you up because it’s time for school, but you preferred staying in bed and sleep? And you try to get back into the story again, but you never succeed? This time it wasn’t a dream. It was real life.”
I was never very good at football, in fact, I was and still am quite bad at it. But that didn’t stop me from dreaming; from hoping that one day I would be able to step out onto the pitch and hear the roaring cheers of a stadium full of people.
It was real life for Totti, but through him, many others were able to live their dream. To watch someone who had the same childhood ambitions as they did make it and embrace that chance to its fullest.
Part of this is due to the fact that Totti never left Rome. From his debut to his retirement, every single game he played was in the colours of the Giallarossi, the club he supported growing up.
785 appearances, 307 goals and 197 assists.
This loyalty to Roma has become both the crux of his legend, but also in some ways what hinders it. Whenever someone brings up Totti (which doesn’t happen as much as it should), he is weighed down with the tag as just ‘one of the best one-club players of all-time’ rather than just ‘one of the greatest’.
Totti was the master of destroying opponents with just one touch. His awareness and technical ability were leagues ahead and allowed him to tear defences apart.
A subtle flick, a first-time cross or his signature backheel; his creative arsenal was vast and deadly. And this is before we get onto the topic of his goalscoring ability.
Words have power, and at this moment I am failing to find the ones needed to describe his otherworldly ability when striking the ball, Fabio Capello would try when he said:
“Only Gigi Riva could kick the ball like him in Italy. But only with his left foot. Totti can use both feet and can hit the ball in several ways. Such champions can shoot ten times per match and eight of them are aimed on target, while five are very dangerous and can turn into a goal. Totti’s shooting qualities are unique and they will stay intact for life.”
And Capello was right. Even as he was deep into his twilight years, he still could score the most breathtaking goals. But actions speak louder than words, and nothing better shows the true majesty of what he could do than his finish against Inter Milan in 2005…
Or his strike against Sampdoria in 2006…
Despite all this, I feel that he doesn’t get his dues as much as he should. This might be just an English perspective on it - I’m sure in Italy he gets the reverence that he deserves as this quote by Gigi Riva attests to:
“It seems as if when he was born, the heavenly father said: ‘Go down there and play football and that’s it.’ And he did what he was prescribed to do.”
But I do feel like there is a significant ‘What If’ that hangs over Totti’s head. After winning the Scudetto with Roma in 2001, he became the number one target for Florentino Perez and Real Madrid.
For four years, Perez would try to coax Il Gladiatore to the Spanish capital and for four years Totti would deny them. But in the summer of 2005, Madrid felt they might have a chance.
€60m was the bid Madrid were willing to make for Totti, who was 29 and had a year to run on his contract (and some reports state that Perez was willing to increase that to €70m to get his man).
A record wage packet, the number 10 shirt, a spot on the famous Galacticos side and potentially the captain’s armband; that was what was on the table.
It would have put him in the spotlight on the world stage; his talent undeniably there for all to see. However that didn’t matter to the boy that was dreaming, he had a connection with Roma that he could not bare to break (as recounted in his book Gladiator):
“Have you done enough to repay Rome before leaving? Of course, you guided them to the scudetto, and that’s a rare feat. But the river of love that you’ve been swimming in since the day of your debut, the affection with which it supports you and protects you, the faith that it has in you – not trust, faith! – can these know their end? The season that’s just finished has been the most absurd of all, and there are no new projects on the horizon. Can you leave it with a light heart?
“What will you do on a Sunday evening, before taking to the pitch at the Bernabéu, when someone tells you Roma have lost the derby? Or that they’ve slipped into the bottom half of the table? You’ll hit the locker, making a dent in it, you’ll massage your sore fist, and you’ll murmur something in your hesitant Spanish to your shocked teammates… You’ll want to be 2,000km away from there to organise the Giallorossi’s rescue. You’ll want to, but you won’t be able to.
“I wouldn’t go to Real Madrid, because it wasn’t my story. My story was Rome.”
The Galacticos would go on to become one of the most famous sides of all time, but not for their successes, as they would win only one Champions League and two league titles (this was before Totti would have arrived).
If Totti had joined they might have won more or even just progressed further in the Champions League. And if he had remained past the first Galactico era, he may have played a part in Madrid’s later successes after the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo, but whether this would have been as a key player or an extra in CR7’s grand show is anyone’s guess (it would have likely been the latter).
With Roma, he would go on to win the European Golden Boot in the 2006/07 season alongside two Coppa Italias and two Supercopas in the late noughties. He would also be part of the World Cup-winning team in 2006 and win the Top Assister award during the competition.
But what I love most about Totti is he didn’t care about the fame or even to some extent the trophies. As the old saying goes:
"For a man's house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man's home is his safest refuge]."
Rome was the city he was born in and the city that had made him. Without Rome, there was no Francesco Totti, but in 2017 when he was standing in front of his adoring fans with a microphone in hand, announcing that this would be his last day in a Roma shirt, it seemed like without Francesco Totti there would be no Rome.
He had become revered like a monarch - The Last Emperor of Rome; gaining something much greater than any footballer can truly attest to.
He wasn’t seen as an outsider or some unapproachable entity, he was seen as part of the family; the spirit of Rome that was present at all times. He stated in his book when talking about how footballers are viewed:
I’m something more, the son and the brother. Wonderful, but a little stressful. Idols pass, posters tear. Sons and brothers, though, never betray, or at least, no one thinks they can. This feeling, so special and so widespread, has made me the symbol of romanità – “Romanness” – for many. That’s another great honour. But I didn’t ask for that either.
So I doubt you’re reading this Francesco Totti, but if you are, this is meant for you.
I can not speak for the people of Rome, though you already know how much you mean to them, but from a kid who couldn’t play football and still can’t to this day, just know that you brought hours of joy to his life while he watched you on TV, and in fulfilling your ambition you made the fact that he couldn’t fulfil his hurt a little less along the way.
And look at him now, you inspired him so much that he became a sports journalist and he’s now writing about you for his football newsletter.
So thank you for dreaming Francesco (and Happy Birthday).