Roma captain Francesco Totti and his one-club career

Even at the age of 40, Francesco Totti was still one of the best footballers in the world. The Italian attacking midfielder began his professional career in 1992, and just a year later he made his debut for The Wolves against Brescia at the age of 16.

Since then, Francesco Totti has become one of Roma’s legends. He had scored 307 goals (250 in Serie A) in 773 matches for The Wolves in all competitions, and he was still going. The midfielder is among the most loyal players in the game, having stayed at Roma throughout his whole career.

The Roma captain won Serie A only once, in 2001, and finished second on eight occasions. At another club he might well have won the title many more times, but his heart belongs to Rome. Totti has also lifted the Coppa Italia twice (2007 and 2008) and the Supercoppa Italiana twice (2001 and 2007).

He was an integral part of the Italian national team that won the FIFA World Cup in 2006, scoring the winning goal against Australia in the Round of 16. The attacking midfielder also played at UEFA Euro 2000, where Italy finished as runners-up. He scored 9 goals in 58 appearances for Italy.

Francesco Totti scored his most recent goal for Roma yesterday, converting a penalty against Cesena in the Coppa Italia to send his team into the semi-finals of the competition.

Francesco Totti can still decide any game with a single pass. He had a big influence on his team in the defeat to Sampdoria last week. For football fans, the chance to keep watching a world-class player of his calibre in top-flight matches is a privilege, and many of them hoped he would stay for another season.

From debut to captain

Totti’s first appearance for Roma came on 28 March 1993, in a 2-0 away win at Brescia under the Yugoslav coach Vujadin Boškov. Within a few seasons the Rome-born midfielder had become the centre of the team, and on 31 October 1998 he was given the captain’s armband. He was 22 at the time, which made him the youngest captain in the history of Serie A. The armband stayed with him for the rest of his playing days, and Roman supporters knew him by two nicknames: “Er Pupone”, the big baby, and “Er Capitano”, the captain.

His most prolific league campaign came in 2006-07, a season after the World Cup win in Germany. Totti scored 26 Serie A goals, finished as the league’s top scorer and received the European Golden Shoe in June 2007. He announced his retirement from international football in 2007, choosing to concentrate on Roma for the rest of his career. By the end of it he had scored 250 Serie A goals, the most any player has scored in the Italian top flight for a single club, and only Silvio Piola had more league goals in total.

How the 2016-17 season ended

The Coppa Italia run that Totti’s penalty against Cesena had kept alive ended in the semi-finals against city rivals Lazio. Lazio won the first leg 2-0 on 1 March 2017 with goals from Sergej Milinković-Savić and Ciro Immobile. Roma won the return leg 3-2 on 4 April, with Stephan El Shaarawy scoring once and Mohamed Salah twice, but Lazio went through 4-3 on aggregate. Juventus later beat Lazio 2-0 in the final.

In the league Roma finished second on 87 points, four behind champions Juventus and one ahead of Napoli, which secured a place in the Champions League group stage. That race was settled on the final day, 28 May 2017, when Roma beat Genoa 3-2 at the Stadio Olimpico with a late winner. It was also Totti’s last match for the club. He came on for Mohamed Salah in the 54th minute to a standing ovation, and after the final whistle he said goodbye to the supporters in an emotional ceremony on the pitch, closing a Roma career of 25 seasons and 307 goals.

After the pitch

Totti stayed at the club after retiring and took up a position as a Roma director. The arrangement lasted two years. On 17 June 2019 he announced his resignation at a press conference in Rome, saying he had not been included in the important decisions at the club and criticising the American ownership led by James Pallotta. He described his departure as a goodbye rather than a farewell.