Francesco Totti – One Club Wonder
The idea of one club wonders is a unique one in the current game with transfer records being broken left right and centre. Its not often that world class players stay at the club they broke onto the scene with all the way to their retirement. However every now again a few gems present themselves into this category, not tempted buy record transfer or astronomical wages, these players played for their beloved clubs and cities and the fans repaid that loyalty.
‘Play for the name on the front of the shirt and they will remember the name on the back.’ A classic Tony Adams quote that rings true for all these one club heros.
I am going to look at doing some short articles on one club wonders, I have numerous legends I want to talk about in these articles so they will hopefully be short and sweet giving people something to read in these uncertain times.
So, starting with the ‘L’Ottavo Ri fi Roma’ The 8th King of Rome – Francesco Totti.
A wonderfully creative attacking player for both Roma and the Italian national side, he is regarded as one of the greatest Italian players to grace the famous blue shirt, one of the greatest in a delightfully talented generation of players and Roma’s greatest ever player.
As the article suggests Totti spent his entire professional career with Roma, in that time he won a Serie A Title, two Coppa Italia’s and two Supercoppa Italiana Titles. His individual accomplishments speak for themselves – He is the second highest goal-scorer in Serie A history with 250 goals in an impressive 618 games. As you would imagine having spent 17 years at the club he is the clubs highest scoring player and most capped player.
He also hold a very prestigious record as the youngest club captain in Serie A history at age 22. The list below shows just what an incredible career he had;
• 11 Oscar del Calcio awards from the IFA
• 5 Serie A Italian Footballer of the year Awards
• 2 Serie A goal of the season awards
• Serie A young footballer of the year award
• 2007 European Golden Shoe and 2010 Golden Foot
• Players Career Award and UEFA Presidents Award
He gained 58 caps with the national team scoring 9 goals. In that time he won 2006 Fifa World Cup in not only a magnificently talented Italian team but a competition that sported an unbelievable array of talent!
Totti had transfer request from some of the biggest clubs in Europe that he inevitably rejected, including a move to Real Madrid in 2004 which could well have seen him lift the champions league title but he rejected the move quoting ‘I choose to stay and wear just one shirt rather than all those titles’.
After retirement from football Totti stayed at the club to become club director, however the situation turned sour for the Roma legend when in 2019 he announced his resignation from the role after disputes with the owners and chairman. He went on to say that a return in the future is a possibility but only under new ownership. That signal the end of a 30 year association with the club.
That concludes my first article in the One club wonder section. I will look to do a number of these over the coming days with the hope to promote the beautiful relationship players have with the boyhood clubs.
Please share this far and wide with anyone who loves football. I love talking about football and the more people that see theses post the more people I can have discussions with. Ill leave you with a delicately put quote by the great man himself.
‘ I cheated on all my girlfriends with each other but I never cheated on Roma and I never will’
HalfTime Oranges 