Gallery: Roma stars delight Academy kids and fans in Dubai

The children, some as young as five, train each week at the Giallorossi’s youth set-up but on Thursday evening they got a front row pass to watch how their heroes do it as they were put through their paces by Luciano Spalletti.

After observing the two-hour session, the kids got a chance to pose for selfies with the players and collect autographs.

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However, it wasn’t just the children who left the training session delighted.

Ahmed AlDakheel, the founder of Arab World Roma Club, presented Francesco Totti with a plaque honouring the club captain on behalf of all of the fan club’s members.

“It was just something to say thank you to our hero,” Ahmed told asroma.com. “Totti is everything to us. We have been supporting him since we were children and now we are men. He is an example to the Arab youth. He represents loyalty, strength and passion.”

Roma’s match against Al Ahly will be streamed live on RomaTV+ from 18:00 CET on Friday. Click here to sign up for free to watch the game.