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Calcio Debate: Should Roma And Francesco Totti Part Company?
After a disappointing campaign, in which their injury-ravaged leader has been a bit-part player, should Roma think the unthinkable and consider letting 'il Capitano' go elsewhere? Gil Gillespie investigates.
May 2, 2009 7:12:51 AM
The Giallorossi have had a very ordinary season. When 100 of the club's most disillusioned supporters turned up at the gates of Roma's training centre last week, they did so with good reason.
Behind their anger was a string of results that have seen i Lupi hammered by Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina in recent weeks and slide to becoming also-rans in the battle for the Champions League qualifying places. Roma are currently six points behind fourth-placed Fiorentina and five behind Genoa, meaning that they are likely to miss out on Europe's top club competition next season.
This, the defeat at the hands of Arsenal in the Champions League and their early exit from the Coppa Italia, means that Luciano Spalletti's side will probably finish the season having accomplished absolutely nothing except mid-table mediocrity.
The situation was so bad following the 4-1 defeat against Fiorentina, that the club's furious president, Rosella Sensi, ordered the entire squad to go straight to Trigoria and remain there until the end of the season. All very well and good. Except that club captain Francesco Totti decided that he wasn't too keen on being on the end of this kind of discipline and organised a meeting with Sensi, behind his coach’s back, to reverse the decision. Spalletti, understandably, was less than happy.
Now, no-one is suggesting, for even one moment, that Francesco Totti hasn't been a truly great player and servant to the club that he has supported since he was a small boy. 'Er Purpone' is the most capped player in the club's history and is Roma's leading goal scorer. He is also the top goal scorer still active in Serie A and the tenth all-time, with a total of 178 strikes to his name - a remarkable number considering he has played as a trequartista for almost all his 17 years at the club.
While some sections of the foreign media have accused Totti of failing to perform on the big stage and of being lazy and over-rated, more observant students of the Italian game have witnessed one of the greatest talents of his generation turning it on for his beloved Roma week-in, week-out. At his best, he has looked like the most complete footballer on the planet. At his worst, however, he has been more like an arrogant prince in fancy boots, refusing to play ball with the annoyingly inadequate paupers.
In many ways, Roma have been his muse and also his downfall.
There has been a genuine feeling that pulling on the blue of the Azzurri is not as important to him as pulling on the yellow and red of his city club. Consequently, he has not made the impact he should have made on the global stage and cannot be thought of as one of the greatest Italian strikers of all time. He scored just nine goals in 58 appearances for his country before eventually announcing his premature retirement from international football in the summer of 2007.
This season Totti has been plagued by a series of injuries and has only played 16 games in Serie A, scoring six goals. Would Roma's season have been any better if they could have called on their captain more often? Well, maybe.
The banners and the T-shirts might read 'No Totti, No Party', but, as last week's cancelling of the training centre punishment demonstrated, Francesco Totti just may have become too much of an influence at the Stadio Olimpico.
Why, for example, has Totti remained, for the most part, as the team's main striker when Mirko Vucinic has always made them look so much more potent when he starts as the centre-forward? Could it be anything to do with Totti's obsession with winning the golden boot? Surely not.
The debate currently raging in the giant sheets of the Italian sports newspapers, on the television and on the radio, and in the bars and cafes of the capital, is all about Totti and his role in the Roma of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Should i Lupi stay faithful to their talismanic skipper and continue building their team around him? Or is it time for the club to break the ties between themselves and the fans' all-time number one hero and make alternative plans for the future? Has Totti already become a beast of burden at Roma? And, if Totti and Roma do go their separate ways, would such a devoted one-club man be able to live with himself if he signed for another club? And if he was given permission to move elsewhere, who would want to sign him anyway? Could Francesco Totti really just keep his head down and become a team player at another club?
According to reports in last week's Gazzetta dello Sport that isn't going to happen anyway. The newspaper said that the 32-year-old has just signed a new contract with the Giallorossi that will keep him at the club until 2014. Totti is said to be taking a pay cut in order to remain at the club - an estimated 20 per cent of his €5.8 million per season.
What the Roma faithful should be hoping for is that Totti's continuing presence at the club doesn't hinder their future development. Injuries, inconsistency and age mean they must rebuild with Totti in mind but not at the centre of all their planning. The captain must be used as cautiously as Alessandro Del Piero, substituted when necessary and treated more like the member of an 11 man football team who are striving for victory, and less like a modern day Julius Caesar. And he must start playing in his proper position, a fantasista not an out-and-out striker.
Should Roma and Francesco Totti part company? Yes, probably. What are the chances of it happening? About as much chance as Paulo Maldini postponing his retirement to become the new player/manager of Queens Park Rangers.
Gil Gillespie, Goal.com
Behind their anger was a string of results that have seen i Lupi hammered by Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina in recent weeks and slide to becoming also-rans in the battle for the Champions League qualifying places. Roma are currently six points behind fourth-placed Fiorentina and five behind Genoa, meaning that they are likely to miss out on Europe's top club competition next season.
This, the defeat at the hands of Arsenal in the Champions League and their early exit from the Coppa Italia, means that Luciano Spalletti's side will probably finish the season having accomplished absolutely nothing except mid-table mediocrity.
The situation was so bad following the 4-1 defeat against Fiorentina, that the club's furious president, Rosella Sensi, ordered the entire squad to go straight to Trigoria and remain there until the end of the season. All very well and good. Except that club captain Francesco Totti decided that he wasn't too keen on being on the end of this kind of discipline and organised a meeting with Sensi, behind his coach’s back, to reverse the decision. Spalletti, understandably, was less than happy.
Now, no-one is suggesting, for even one moment, that Francesco Totti hasn't been a truly great player and servant to the club that he has supported since he was a small boy. 'Er Purpone' is the most capped player in the club's history and is Roma's leading goal scorer. He is also the top goal scorer still active in Serie A and the tenth all-time, with a total of 178 strikes to his name - a remarkable number considering he has played as a trequartista for almost all his 17 years at the club.
While some sections of the foreign media have accused Totti of failing to perform on the big stage and of being lazy and over-rated, more observant students of the Italian game have witnessed one of the greatest talents of his generation turning it on for his beloved Roma week-in, week-out. At his best, he has looked like the most complete footballer on the planet. At his worst, however, he has been more like an arrogant prince in fancy boots, refusing to play ball with the annoyingly inadequate paupers.
In many ways, Roma have been his muse and also his downfall.
There has been a genuine feeling that pulling on the blue of the Azzurri is not as important to him as pulling on the yellow and red of his city club. Consequently, he has not made the impact he should have made on the global stage and cannot be thought of as one of the greatest Italian strikers of all time. He scored just nine goals in 58 appearances for his country before eventually announcing his premature retirement from international football in the summer of 2007.
This season Totti has been plagued by a series of injuries and has only played 16 games in Serie A, scoring six goals. Would Roma's season have been any better if they could have called on their captain more often? Well, maybe.
The banners and the T-shirts might read 'No Totti, No Party', but, as last week's cancelling of the training centre punishment demonstrated, Francesco Totti just may have become too much of an influence at the Stadio Olimpico.
Why, for example, has Totti remained, for the most part, as the team's main striker when Mirko Vucinic has always made them look so much more potent when he starts as the centre-forward? Could it be anything to do with Totti's obsession with winning the golden boot? Surely not.
The debate currently raging in the giant sheets of the Italian sports newspapers, on the television and on the radio, and in the bars and cafes of the capital, is all about Totti and his role in the Roma of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Should i Lupi stay faithful to their talismanic skipper and continue building their team around him? Or is it time for the club to break the ties between themselves and the fans' all-time number one hero and make alternative plans for the future? Has Totti already become a beast of burden at Roma? And, if Totti and Roma do go their separate ways, would such a devoted one-club man be able to live with himself if he signed for another club? And if he was given permission to move elsewhere, who would want to sign him anyway? Could Francesco Totti really just keep his head down and become a team player at another club?
According to reports in last week's Gazzetta dello Sport that isn't going to happen anyway. The newspaper said that the 32-year-old has just signed a new contract with the Giallorossi that will keep him at the club until 2014. Totti is said to be taking a pay cut in order to remain at the club - an estimated 20 per cent of his €5.8 million per season.
What the Roma faithful should be hoping for is that Totti's continuing presence at the club doesn't hinder their future development. Injuries, inconsistency and age mean they must rebuild with Totti in mind but not at the centre of all their planning. The captain must be used as cautiously as Alessandro Del Piero, substituted when necessary and treated more like the member of an 11 man football team who are striving for victory, and less like a modern day Julius Caesar. And he must start playing in his proper position, a fantasista not an out-and-out striker.
Should Roma and Francesco Totti part company? Yes, probably. What are the chances of it happening? About as much chance as Paulo Maldini postponing his retirement to become the new player/manager of Queens Park Rangers.
Gil Gillespie, Goal.com
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