The club mourns the great Pierino Prati

“Buticchi Albino, grazie per Pierino."

That's what Roma fans would sing, from the stands, during the summer of 1973.

Albino Buticchi was the Milan president who had solid Prati to the Giallorossi that year - a striker who had scored a hat-trick in a European Cup final, helping that side win everything there was to win over the preceding few years; even finishing top goalscorer at the end of the 1967-68.

Known as 'Pierino la peste' (The pest), the striker proved he still had a great deal to give after leaving the Rossoneri - firing his way into the hearts of Giallorossi fans almost immediately with his eye for goal.

In the 1970s it was he who represented goals for that whole generation for young Roma fans, in the same way that Pedro Manfredini had for the generation that preceded him and Roberto Pruzzo would for the one to follow.

Prati scored his first goal for the club against Bologna in October of that year, although injury problems harmed his first few months at the club. But the arrival of Nils Liedholm, a man he knew well from Milan, revitalised him - as he scored eight goals to finish the campaign.

The following year he added 14 in 29 games (and 8 in 10 in the Coppa Italia), inspiring the side to a top-three finish. Six times that season, in fact, Roma won 1-0 - Prati with the only goal.

The following season he further enhanced his legend among the fans, scoring in both derbies against Lazio - the second of which ensured the club would also finish above their city rivals in the final standings.

From that point on injuries blunted his threat, but when he played he still showed flashes of the old quality. He was beloved by fans: before every game they would had him a bunch of flowers.

"It was a reciprocated salute between me on the fans," he said, "and on the pitch I tried to do everything to make them happy!"

He celebrated every goal with the Curva Sud - even when he scored at the Nord, he would head across the pitch to celebrate with the fans.

That perhaps summed up the bond he felt with the club, an empathy he would later hint he never quite felt in the same way at Milan - despite being a man of that city and of that club. Indeed, he would end up writing a book about that phase of his career, entitled 'My Roman lover'.

Grazie, Pierino.

“Milan was my wife - but Roma was my lover”

- Pierino Prati