An hour into a conversation that has ranged from childhood TV favourites to the challenges of retirement, reflecting on destiny and “what if” moments that defined a career, I stumble into one topic that Francesco Totti considers taboo. All it took was a question about whether he lets his 15-year-old son, Cristian, beat him at pinball.
“No!” he exclaims, fixing me with incredulous eyes from the other end of our Zoom call. “Things have to be earned, not given!”
What other mindset could we expect from a man who stayed his whole career at one club, declining opportunities to earn and win more elsewhere? Totti made his senior debut with Roma in 1992 and played there for a quarter of a century, retiring in 2017 with more than 300 goals to his name.
He was hailed by Diego Maradona as “the best player I have ever seen”, yet in all those years of club football Totti claimed a single Serie A title, supplemented by a pair of Coppa Italia wins and two more in the Supercoppa – Italy’s contest between the league and cup champions. It is no secret that he wishes he could have won more.
“But sitting here now thinking about regrets – ‘I could have done this, I could have said that’ – it’s not how I am,” Totti insists. “I did the most I could, and I took everything there was to take from it.”
To claim even one Scudetto for your childhood team, in the city where you were born, is special. Totti has said before that a Scudetto in Rome is worth 10 in another city. Roma have won Serie A three times in their 94-year history.
In his autobiography, newly released in English under the title Gladiator, Totti recalls how the celebrations for that 2001 title endured through the summer and beyond. For him, it was a higher high even than his other great career triumph, lifting the World Cup with Italy in 2006.
“They call me crazy and can’t accept it,” writes Totti in the book. “Because obviously the World Cup is the pinnacle of any career, but this is more the case for those who win [titles] every year, like [Juventus players], than for those who almost never win. For us, the best thing is the Scudetto, and my biggest gripe is not having won at least a second.”
It is the perspective of a footballer who was also a fan – a Romanista and, perhaps more essentially, a Roman. “The city where you are born is always the most beautiful,” he says. “That’s true for everyone – the place where you are from has a different appeal. Even if Rome, for me, really is the most beautiful city in the world … In the end, we are all equal. Some more, some less.”
Totti is what Italians refer to as a bandiera – a footballer whose devotion to their club is such that they become its “flag”, a living symbol. As money has flowed into the game and freedom of movement increased in the years since the 1995 Bosman ruling, they have become ever-more rare.
“I started out in different times. A different football,” says Totti. “A football made of love, of affection toward fans. Playing for the team I always supported, it was a lot easier for me to make this choice. Twenty-five years in one team is no small thing, and being the captain, being one of the most important players, you always need to measure up. But to make a comparison between my time and today, it’s difficult. Today it’s more business. You go where you can make more money. And that’s fair enough, no?”
To hear Totti explain it, you might think he had retired four decades ago, not four years. He, too, had opportunities to follow the cash. When Real Madrid made their last push to sign him, in 2006, he recalls a contract offer that would have made him the best-paid player in the world.
It was one of three occasions when Totti’s career, and his life, could have gone in a different direction. He defines them as his “Sliding Doors” moments, after the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow movie, of which he was a big fan.
First came an opportunity to join Milan’s youth system at 12, when their sporting director, Ariedo Braida, turned up at his family’s front door – before leading clubs in Rome had shown such interest. Next was the 1996-97 season, when Roma hired a manager, Carlos Bianchi, who wanted to sign Jari Litmanen to take Totti’s spot. Last came the big offer from Madrid.
Reading the book, my impression had been that the first set of Sliding Doors were the ones that Totti could most easily have walked through. The decision to say no to Milan was made jointly with his parents, who took advice from a friend at the Italian Football Federation.
Milan had just won Serie A, and for Totti they were, “the most exciting team I’d ever seen, the only one I fantasised about playing in”. If his parents had taken the view that a 150m lira (€75,000) cheque was too good to turn down, might he have ended up in red and black?
“Honestly, no. The decisions were always made by me, with my own head. Often your parents will give you advice. And it’s right to listen to them. But then, in the end, being so young, I knew I had time and a future in front of me.”
Madrid was another matter. Totti was approaching his 30th birthday in the summer of 2006, and even as a newly crowned world champion knew that certain opportunities would not be there forever. They had tried to sign him five years before but back then the Giallorossi had rejected their advances without waiting to see how he felt.
“Of course I thought about it,” says Totti. “Let’s say that there were quite a few days in which we had one foot in and one foot out. Then, I’ve said, often and truthfully, that the choice to stay with Roma was made from the heart. In those moments, when you feel like this, you can’t walk away.”
More than at any other time in our conversation, Totti seems to be picking his words deliberately, clearing his throat and taking a moment to consider how he wants to phrase a thought. “But certainly, looking back, thinking about the fact of saying no to Real Madrid, a little bit of doubt does remain.
“Real Madrid were the only other team that I could have gone to play for. The only team it could have been, I think. An experience in a different country could have been something beautiful for everyone. For my family. For me …”
With perfectly imperfect timing, that thought is interrupted by a wobbly internet connection. When it returns, that hint of wistfulness has departed. Totti is back to reminding me, and perhaps himself, that his decisions were always his own. “When you make a choice with your own head, that can never be a wrong choice. Don’t you think?”
More than once, Totti returns to the word “destino” – destiny – as he discusses these pivotal moments in his life and career. He is not fatalistic. “There is a destiny waiting for us, but you still have to go out and claim it,” he says. “You live by the day, you live what’s in front of you. But one step at a time you understand that there are things waiting for you.”
It is a strikingly similar worldview to the one that his former Italy teammate Gigi Buffon put to me in another interview. Totti laughs when I point it out. They have been friends since they met playing for Italy’s under-14s. For Totti, it was all about a shared journey. Although they lived in different parts of the country and played for different teams, “We grew up on the same street”.
Buffon is still resisting the exit road into retirement, returning this summer to play for his first club, Parma, in Serie B. For all that Totti resists the word “regret”, there is an unshakeable sense that he wishes he had found similar autonomy in defining how his playing career ended.
In Totti’s telling, Roma informed him his time was up in an off-hand way, asking before a match against Lazio in the spring of 2017 whether he wanted to say a few words before his last derby. For a person who finds such clarity owning the decisions they have made of their own free will, this loss of autonomy was difficult to accept.
“You never truly want to stop,” Totti says, perhaps unconsciously making his own experience universal. “Honestly, I didn’t take it well at the beginning. But, slowly slowly I have talked myself around to the idea that it was the right thing.”
There is no sadness, Totti insists, over the club’s failure to bring him back in some other role, though this may be a question of semantics. “Certainly it doesn’t make me happy, because I have always put Roma ahead of everything and everyone. But, as I said before, this is destiny, I think … Then, if they were to call me one day, we would need to discuss things and see.”
Right now, his focus is on the sports consultancy he has launched, with branches for player scouting and talent management. “The main objective right now is to find promising young players. I don’t know if it will be simple, but I will try with everything that I have to succeed.”
A question about whether he will seek to impart his wisdom on the young players is met with a flurry of nos. “No lessons!” he insists. “There are things that you either have inside you, or you will have a hard time reaching a certain level. Of course, with determination, desire, sacrifice, you can reach some objectives. But to be a talent, you need to have that inside you. You cannot work to become a talent.”
We are back to destiny, and perhaps even to my question about pinball. My follow-up remark that Cristian would enjoy an eventual win more for knowing that his dad had not gone easy meets with a grin. “We’ll see,” says Totti, with the easy airs of a man who does not expect to be dethroned any time soon. “Let’s hope for him!”
Gladiator by Francesco Totti is published by deCoubertin Books and out now. Order a copy here.
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