.............The Legend in the Picture.................... Some players you just adore for their professionalism, others for their grit and commitment. Still, there are those you try to dislike simply because they are too good to be playing against your favourite team. You pray for all the ill-luck to slow their progress yet, like a bad diarrhoea, they continue to plague your pants with shit after shit of unstoppable distress. The documents say he made his debut at the age of 16 against Brescia, but 22 years on, his desire for the game remains whole and aflame. Already among the greatest one-club footballers of our time, the Big Baby has once more etched his name in the folklore of Roman Football. He is now the man of the Capital Derby with 11 strikes, after capping a memorable comeback against their sea-blue cousins with a selfie-capturing display under the Curva. Aptly named the Emperor of Rome, this embodiment of everything unique in the World Game has dined and wined with and against the great players of his generation. And even now, at the rare footballing age of 38, Er Purpones flicks and chips remain as casual as a child picking his nose. He enchants the world like kindled clouds in the gathering night, dazzling his audience as only the last show of a concert can. There is no doubting his infrequent moments of madness, but his wow factor remains a torch that seems to never dim. The Old Dog, they say, shoots like he had two of Gigi Riva’s left foot. He goes past opponents like the wind over stalks of slim grass, almost. He is the lion and its pride. His mane is class, his ancestry is legend. He has carried Roma single-handedly like a throng under a palanquin. Totti is the rifle and the bomb. He is the menace in a storm, the wrath of The Wolves. The Eternal Captain is scourge and he is hope. Giovanni Trapattoni put it in no lesser words. “Every player has some genius, but there’s only one Van Gogh, and there is nobody like Totti.” You watch him play and you wonder why there exists that squiggly line between real and legend, myth and history. There is nothing realer than this son of Rome, and his name will be remembered in song and lore for years to come. He might not be the greatest of our generation, but the need to deny him that position just tells a story of its own; that his is the position at the intersection of opinion and fact; second to Piola on the Serie A all time scorers chart (239), highest scoring Roman in history (296), most-capped Roman in all competitions. As it is said on the Roma website, It might read Totti, but its pronounced Roma. Of the last breed of great Italians from that ancient epoch, Totti remains, together with Il Toto, Buffon and Pirlo, the lingering sunset of Calcio. Sadly, that brim of the golden sun might well leave our horizon with the hanging of his boots. Watching him now is like seeing a rare pearl disappear into the abyss of a deep ocean. Farther and farther it sinks, and your poverty of choice deepens with the passing waves of time. https://youtube/watch?v=LGjNncig2og
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 01:25:20 +0000
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