[Forza_Roma]

Some of the article is wrong...but whatever, its Sports Illustrated.

Man on a mission
He's not embraced, but Totti leads Roma at own pace

Perhaps Italy's most important player, Roma's Francesco Totti has never made the jump to one of Serie A's three super-clubs.
Perhaps Italy's most important player, Roma's Francesco Totti has never made the jump to one of Serie A's three super-clubs.

To become a soccer legend, there is a path to superstardom that's quicker and smoother than others.

You'll need talent, of course, as well as drive, the will to win and health -- all the qualities which we in the media regularly extol.

But if you want to take the quicker road to glory, you also, at some point, need to make the basic decision to join one of the world's perennial super-clubs.

You know who they are -- the half-dozen teams who regularly reach the Champions League quarterfinals, the ones where you can be surrounded by players of equal and greater talent, who will enable you to take the odd night off.

They're also the ones who are on TV, the ones the sponsors love, the ones which can make you a household name outside your country's borders.

Move to Manchester United, Milan or Barcelona and, if you have the skills to back it up, you will -- to paraphrase Gerald Durrell -- "inherit the world."

Would Wayne Rooney be as big as he is if he were still at Everton? Would Sergio Ramos be anything other than a "good, solid pro" if he had stayed at Valencia? If Andrea Pirlo had never left his home in Brescia, would we hail him as a great playmaker?

The answer, more often than not, is no. Which is why those players who -- for whatever reason, whether it be loyalty or big-fish-in-small-pond syndrome -- regularly turn down the chance to join the super-clubs are a special breed.

Southampton's Matt Le Tissier was one, as was Julen Guerrero of Athletic Bilbao. In their own way, before they took on new challenges at the end of their careers, Gabriel Batistuta and Henrik Larsson, with their enduring loyalty to Fiorentina and Celtic, respectively, epitomized this as well.

Yet, perhaps, there is no greater example of this than Francesco Totti. Born and bred in Rome, he made his debut for the Giallorossi -- the team he supported all his life -- 13 days after his 18th birthday and never left.

While AS Roma is by no means a "small club," apart from a three-year spell under Fabio Capello at the turn of the millennium, it never matched the big boys in terms of spending or star power. In fact, even now, it remains a heavily indebted club, one which has to scrimp and save each summer to bring in -- often B-list -- players.

And yet it is on that stage that Totti plies his trade. At 30, he is enjoying one of his best seasons. Roma currently sits in second in Serie A and last week knocked out heavily favored Lyon to advance to the quarterfinals of the Champions League. In the second leg of that matchup, Totti uncorked one of his trademark pinpoint accurate did-you-see-that 50-yard passes to set up Mancini's stepover-laden goal, after opening the scoring with the kind of header a genuine center forward would be proud of.

Totti is not a genuine striker, but, as in previous seasons, he is Roma's main source of goals. As of Thursday, he has scored 18 in 26 Serie A games this season and he's just two away from breaking his personal one-year record. With 143 Serie A goals under his belt, he has a decent chance of becoming only the sixth player in history to score 200 in the Italian top flight.

Totti played a big part in Italy's run to its fourth World Cup title last summer, but was overshadowed by several of his teammates.

In Rome, Totti is the indisputed king (at least as far as the red-and-yellow half is concerned). Yet worldwide, while he is undoubtedly respected, he fails to garner the accolades he enjoys at home. There are two main reasons for this and they tell us a little bit about the nature of fame and celebrity.

The first is that he is seen to have failed to have a genuine impact at international level with Italy or with Roma in the Champions League. This year marks the first time he has helped Roma reach the quarterfinals of the competition.

With Italy, he had a good Euro 2000, setting up what could have been the winning goal in the final against France. At the '02 World Cup, however, he floundered with the rest of the Azzurri and the enduring memory is his controversial ejection for diving against South Korea.

It went even worse at Euro '04. Frustrated by Christian Poulsen's close marking job in the game against Denmark, Totti spat at his opponent and was slapped with a six-game ban, which covered him in disgrace.

He wasn't fit going into the '06 World Cup -- he had rushed back from a knee injury in record time -- and while he played his part in Italy's victory (he slotted away a crucial injury-time penalty against Australia) and featured in every game, he was overshadowed by the performances of Fabio Cannavaro, Gigi Buffon and Pirlo, who got all the headlines.

The second factor has more to do with his look and playing style. Because Totti is that rare combination -- a "skill" player built like a bruiser -- he tends to get fouled more often than others and, often, goes down. This does not endear him to the press in certain parts of the world, particularly the English-speaking media, which is dominated by British pundits.

And, simply put, a number of them seem to be suspicious of a certain type of Latin player: long hair, headband, argumentative, theatrical, etc. In that sense, Totti is a turn-off. Whether this is fair or not is hardly the issue. The point is that superstardom necessarily involves the ability to sell yourself to the critics and that is something Totti, for whatever reason, has not done.

All this could change this season. If he can lead Roma past Manchester United and into the semifinals of the Champions League, he will earn the kudos which have so far escaped him internationally.

And it will be that much sweeter, because he will have built his reputation without having needed to make the jump to one of the game's aristocrats.

SI.com - Writers - Gabriele Marcotti: He's not embraced, but Totti leads Roma at own pace - Thursday March 15, 2007 11:30AM
SI.com - Writers - Man on a mission (cont.) - Thursday March 15, 2007 11:30AM