Totti still magic as Roma icon turns 40
MILAN: As hard as he tries, Roma coach Luciano Spalletti is unlikely to convince fans this week that Francesco Totti is just another player for the Serie A giants.
On Tuesday Totti turns 40 and the one- club man who is in his 25th and likely last season with the ‘ Giallorossi’ ( Yellow and Reds) is still, when he gets the chance, producing the magic.
“For me, he’s been the top player in Italy for the past 25 years,” said Sinisa Mihajlovic, whose Torino side upset Totti’s pre-birthday party celebrations by beating Roma 3-1 in Turin on Sunday.
“He’s one of the best ever. It’s amazing to see what he can still do with a ball.”
Known as the ‘ Golden Boy’ as a precociously- gifted teen, and revered as the ‘ King of Rome’ throughout a storied career that saw Totti, if not his underachieving club, rise to the top, fans expect a fairytale ending this season.
It is over 23 years since Totti made his Roma debut in the final minutes of a 2- 0 win at Brescia in March 1993.
And his latest milestone serves as a reminder of how Totti has evolved, adapted to and excelled in a changing game during some of the wonder years of Italy’s top flight.
“He is an example for us all and someone we all look up to,” said Cristiano Ronaldo last February as Real Madrid prepared to face Roma in the Champions League.
“If you play at the level he does, it’s good for him, for football and also for the children, because we give them the idea that football has no limits.”
When Totti took the captain’s armbandfromBraziliandefender Aldair under pioneering Czech coach Zdenek Zeman in 1998, he had answered his calling.
Two seasons later, he helped end Roma’s 18- year wait for the Serie A title, in 2001. When Roma weren’t winning, he was stunning rivals with an astonising array of ball skills and goals.
Totti has “purged” bitter city rivals Lazio on more than one occasion, goaded other rivals with equally provocative messages on T- shirts and, last year, hit the headlines after celebrating a brace against Lazio by running to the ‘Curva Sud’ and using a telephone to take a ‘selfie’ with thousands of fans in the background.
Totti is unlikely to challenge Silvio Piola’s all- time Serie A record of 274 league goals, which included over 100 for Lazio.
Two days before his birthday, Totti hit his 250th league goal, beating Joe Hart for the second time in two years having scored the leveller in a 1-1 draw against Manchester City in 2015 to become the oldest scorer in the Champions League at 38 and three days.