Roma Review 2017, Part 2: Farewell to Francesco Totti

Francesco Costa / @francescocosta: “Every time I try to explain it to someone who was not in the ground that day or who doesn’t support Roma, I can never quite find the right words. Maybe there aren’t any. Those who were there will know what I mean. Saying goodbye to the greatest player in Roma’s history, in tears, among tens of thousands of similarly emotional people, after a 28-year long story. Experiencing that moment, knowing that something like that will never happen again and that you will remember it forever, knowing that there is no win or trophy that will equal that feeling in that precise moment, and feeling the privilege of having been a fan of [Francesco] Totti’s Roma. Often the words 'always' and 'never' are falsely used, but on that day we knew those words were true.”

Daniele Trombetta / @Dtrombetta87: “I was born in 1987. When Totti made his Serie A debut I was too young, but I remember him scoring his first goal. My first memories of football are of the World Cup in USA in 1994 and Totti… Totti. When I say, write or think this name, it makes me tingle. It will always be that way. During his ‘goodbye’ I felt sad, because it was the most symbolic talisman in world football that was leaving the game. I felt pain because a man who’d been a constant in my following of football, between the ages of 5 and 30, was retiring. I also felt joy because everyone has envied us, still envies us and will continue to do so because we’ve had Totti.”

Wayne Girard / @WayneinRome: “There was a very depressed air in the bar that morning. There were maybe almost 100 of us in midtown Manhattan watching together and I think everyone had that feeling in the bottom of their gut. When you zeroed in on watching Totti, it felt like watching someone being tortured, about to be killed, and you couldn’t do anything to help him. It was one of the worst days of my life. The presentation got to everyone. Writing this down actually hurts and I don’t think I’ve reflected in such a way since then. It sounds morbid, but if Roma hadn’t won, I would have wished for the world to end. I think I cried for 36 hours.”

Bren / @BrenCdT: “My emotions were a mix of sadness and anger. The sadness requires no explanation, but I was extremely angry at the manner with which Totti was treated throughout his final season at Roma. If ever there were a player in any sport that deserved to dictate the terms of his exit, it was Francesco Totti. Did I cry? I can’t quite recall, I think I was too numb and caught up in the surreality of it all to really conjure up a physical reaction.”

John Solano / @Solano_56: “I was certainly sad. Totti is a player I grew up watching and I was lucky enough to witness his career in full. I was hoping Roma would get the result in the match in order to send Totti off in the correct manner. Watching Totti afterwards was heartbreaking as you could tell he was still coming to terms with hanging up his boots.”

@francescocosta: “I sobbed. I started crying when I saw Totti emotional as he hugged his children. I was about to stop then I saw him pause in front of the Tribuna Tevere stand, resting on the advertising hoardings, and I started again. It happened to me again when I was watching the YouTube video – I clicked and cried again. I’m not over it. Perhaps we’ll never get over it?”

@Dtrombetta87: “I cried a great deal on that day. Deep down we knew Totti – we understood his behaviour both on and off the pitch, always with Roma in his heart and with his family, for which he’d have given everything, just like we’d have done to see him wear that shirt forever.”

@BrenCdT: “Was I prepared for his retirement? No, not in the slightest. When you run a site called the Chiesa di Totti, it comes with the territory. I knew at some point we’d have to pen a farewell, but actually sitting down and facing that fact was impossible. So rather than giving him one final farewell, we spent the entire season recounting the highs and lows of his career - you can’t really encapsulate what he meant to this club, city and fanbase, so words will always fall short. Rather than giving it a one-off, we tried to make it a season long celebration and I’m quite proud of our coverage of his final season.”

@Solano_56: “I was prepared. For the previous season or two before his retirement, I started to slowly accept that Totti’s career is nearing the end. I miss his ability as few players in the world were better than Totti.”

@francescocosta: “I felt like I was ready for him to say goodbye to football, with it having been spoken about so much, but I’ve realised over these months that I wasn’t ready. It’s really more than football. For so many fans, for example, Roma have never been without Totti.

"When he made his Serie A debut I was eight years old – basically when I was starting to support Roma. I’m now 33. I celebrated his goals when I was at primary school, secondary school, college, university and in the different cities and locations in which I’ve worked. Over those 28 years, everything in my life has changed – friends, relatives, relationships. Totti has been there all the time. His retirement marked the end of an era for millions of people’s lives.”

- Francesco Costa

@WayneinRome: “I think I had made peace with it about three years ago when he started to frequent the bench. I saw any other help from him as just the cherry on top of what was already more than the city of Rome could have ever asked for. Actually seeing it though was a different story - that was a nightmare.”

@Dtrombetta87: “I don’t think anyone was ready for his retirement, even though people knew it was right. Now it is only us that can hold dear those moments of joy that Totti gave us year after year. Only we can remember him as he truly was.”

@BrenCdT: “As much as I loved the goals, the celebrations and the pure joy he showed playing for Roma, it’s the little things - the tidy passes in tight spaces, the switches of play and the chances he’d create that no one else could have even imagined - things like that aren’t easily replaced.”

@WayneinRome: “I’m not old enough to remember not watching Totti on the team. I’ve only known him as my captain. The feeling of hope when he stepped on the field is a feeling that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have again. The atmosphere rose and everyone from the Curva Sud to New York City to Jakarta believed that something magic could and would happen. I also miss learning from him, I truly do. The heel passes and flicks I tried to emulate as a player, those moments I’ll never get back. It’s terrifying but also amazing to think how a clever pass of the ball could move a team, a city and all of us.”

@Dtrombetta87: “We’ll miss his undisputed genius with the football – he did things that only he was capable of. We’ll miss the spontaneity of his actions – both good and bad. We’ll miss his wit, his ability to laugh at himself, his simplicity and the honesty of everything he said in public. We’ll miss his look towards the crowd after every goal and every time he took to the field or departed it. And we’ll miss chanting his name in the stadium when our captain, wearing number 10, was ready.”

@francescocosta: “The list of things I miss about Totti, in terms of his technique, is endless. But those aren’t the things I miss the most about him. What I miss most is that feeling that anything can happen, that even in the most difficult of moments, there is hope. I’m talking about almost paranormal happenings – like that Roma v Torino game that we all remember. Even in the later years of his career, when he played fewer games, seeing Totti on the bench or on the pitch made you think that, really, nothing was truly lost and that something seemingly impossible could become possible. Today we’re still a strong side but we’ve lost that ‘religious’ dimension, so to speak. We were lucky to have that for so many years.”

Andrea Cardoni / @andrecardoni: "I remember that all of us in the stadium made a silent agreement not to look each other in the eyes while we were there and just to keep our eyes on the pitch – even then we didn’t want to look too much because players like [Daniele] De Rossi and [Alessandro] Florenzi were crying so we couldn’t escape it. I remember at the start of his speech, after his walk around the pitch with the music and endless applause, that he took a moment. He was emotional, took a breath, pulled the microphone away from his face and sniffed – in that moment everyone could hear the sound of that emotion, without it being amplified, coming straight from the field into the unimaginable silence there was up to just a moment before. In terms of Totti as a player, I miss that feeling I got watching Roma play, when I saw the ball reach his feet and thought, ‘Now he’s going to do something to make us go crazy’."