Francesco Totti Trivia: 40 interesting facts about the footballer!

Francesco Totti is an Italian professional footballer who plays and captains Roma. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about the one and only CAPITANO!

1.He was born 27 September 1976.

2. Francesco Totti has spent his entire career at Roma, winning a Serie A title, two Coppa Italia titles, and two Supercoppa Italiana titles; he is the top goalscorer and the most capped player in the club’s history. Totti also holds the record for the youngest club captain in the history of Serie A.

3. Often referred to as Il Bimbo d’Oro (The Golden Boy), Il Re di Roma (The King of Rome), Er Pupone (The Big Baby), and Il Gladiatore (The Gladiator) by the Italian sports media, Totti is the top goalscorer amongst currently active players in Serie A, and the second highest scorer of all-time in Italian league history with 250 goals.

4. A creative offensive playmaker, renowned for his vision, technical ability, and goalscoring, Totti is considered to be one of the greatest Italian players of all time, one of the most talented players of his generation, and also Roma’s greatest ever player.

5. He has won a record eleven Oscar del calcio awards from the Italian Footballers’ Association, which consists of five Serie A Italian Footballer of the Year awards, two Serie A Footballer of the Year awards, two Serie A Goal of the Year awards, one Serie A Goalscorer of the Year award and one Serie A Young Footballer of the Year award.

6. Totti is the sixth highest scoring Italian in all competitions, with 314 goals.

7. A 2006 FIFA World Cup winner and UEFA Euro 2000 finalist with Italy, Totti was selected in the All-Star team for both tournaments; he also represented his country at the 2002 World Cup, and at Euro 2004. He has also won several individual awards, the most important of which are the 2007 European Golden Shoeand the Golden Foot.

8. In 2004, he was named in the FIFA 100, a list of the world’s greatest living players, selected by Pelé, as part of FIFA’s centenary celebrations.

9. In 2011, Totti was recognized by IFFHS as the most popular footballer in Europe.

10. In November 2014, Totti extended his record as the oldest goalscorer in UEFA Champions League history, aged 38 years and 59 days.

11. Francesco Totti was born in Rome, to parents Lorenzo and Fiorella Totti.

12. He was raised in the Porta Metronia neighbourhood.

13. As a youngster he idolised ex-Roma captain Giuseppe Giannini, and regularly played football with older boys.

14. Francesco Totti began to play youth team football at the age of 8, with Fortitudo, later joining Smit Trastevere and Lodigiani. After he came to the attention of scouts, his mother refused a lucrative offer from Milan in order to keep him in his home town.

15. Although his youth club initially had come to an agreement to sell Totti to the Lazio youth side, one of Roma’s youth coaches, Gildo Giannini, persuaded his parents to let him join the Roma youth squad in 1989.

16. Mazzone, Totti began to play more regularly as a second striker, and scored his first goal on 4 September 1994 in a 1–1 draw against Foggia.

17. By 1995, Totti had become a regular in Roma’s starting line-up and scored 16 goals during the next three seasons, while creating several more, as his talent was praised by his manager Mazzone.

18. Following Mazzone’s sacking in the summer of 1996 and the departure of Giannini, Totti was expected to play a more prominent role, after several promising seasons; however, the team underperformed during the 1996–97 season, while Totti struggled to gain playing time under new manager Carlos Bianchi, and was even set to leave for Sampdoria on loan in January 1997. Roma’s chairman at the time however, Franco Sensi, impeded the transfer, leading to further tensions with the manager, who eventually parted ways with the club.

19. Despite a disappointing 2004–05 season, Totti maintained consistent form by scoring 15 goals, among which was his 100th Serie A goal from a free-kick in a 3–3 draw against Internazionale, on 3 October 2004.

20. Two months later, on 19 December, he became Roma’s all-time leading scorer in Serie A after netting his 107th career league goal against Parma, breaking the record previously held by Roberto Pruzzo.

21.  Throughout his long career at his hometown club, Roma, Totti has predominantly played as a classic number 10, functioning either as an offensive-midfield playmaker, or as a supporting or deep-lying forward, behind the main striker;only in the later years of his Roma career was he mainly employed as a main striker.

22. An elegant, tactically versatile and technically gifted attacking midfielder with a good knowledge of the game, Totti is capable of playing anywhere along the front-line, and has also been deployed as a winger or as a midfield playmaker under Zdeněk Zeman,and most notably as a false-9 under Luciano Spalletti and Rudi García.

23. While being a prolific goal-scorer and an accurate finisher (he is currently the sixth highest goal scoring Italian in club competitions), he is also renowned for his technique, vision, creativity and range of passing, as well as his ability to play the ball first-time, set the pace in midfield and provide throughballs and assists for his teammates, occasionally through long balls or lobbed passes, or even through his trademark use of the backheel, when playing with his back to goal.

24. His role has at times been described as that of a hardworking, generous, quick and dynamic centre forward.

25. Known for his work-rate, longevity and defensive contribution, Totti underwent an athletic development during his time under Zeman: he undertook a muscle strengthening programme to adapt to the rhythms of 21st century football, gaining physical strength, stamina, fitness and shooting power, to the detriment of some of his speed and agility, which also enabled him to maintain a consistent level of performance in his later career.

26. His principal characteristics are his vision, acceleration, ball control, balance, dribbling skills, precise passing and powerful and accurate shooting ability, from both inside and outside the area, with either foot, despite being naturally right-footed.

27. He is also an accurate penalty kick[265] and free kick taker.

28. Totti has also scored several goals from chipped shots (also known as a cucchiaio in Italian, which roughly translates to “spoon” in English) throughout his career, and has often used this gesture on penalties; one of the most famous instances in which Totti performed this type of Panenka penalty kick was in the shoot-out of Italy’s Euro 2000 semi-final match against the Netherlands.

29. One of his most famous lobbed goals is the one he scored against Inter, where he dribbled past Marco Materazzi before chipping the ball over goalkeeper Júlio César; it was later named the best goal in Serie A of the 2005–06 season.

30. He scored another notable goal using this technique against Lazio in the 2002 Derby della Capitale, which ended in a 5–1 win for Roma.

31. Because of his penchant for scoring goals using this particular gesture, the title of his 2006 autobiography Tutto Totti: Mo je faccio er cucchiaio (English: All about Totti: I’m gonna chip him now) references this technique, as well as the statement made to his Italy team mates before his memorable Euro 2000 semi-final shootout penalty against the Netherlands.

32. Francesco Totti is known for his exuberant and humorous goal celebrations. One of his famous celebrations took place on 11 April 1999 in the second Derby della Capitale of the 1998–99 season, in which he scored during the final minutes of the game and celebrated by flashing a T-shirt under his jersey, which read “Vi ho purgato ancora” (“I’ve purged you guys again”), in reference to events at the previous derby against Lazio on 29 November 1998 when Totti helped Roma come back from 3–1 down with an assist to Eusebio Di Francesco for 3–2 and finally a goal of his own for 3–3.

33. Another derby goal against Lazio saw him take over a sideline camera and aim it at the Roma fans.

34. Francesco Totti has displayed numerous T-shirts with messages on them from under his jersey over the years, including two for his wife; “6 Unica” (“You’re One of a kind”) and “6 Sempre Unica” (“You’re Still the One”),and a political one “Liberate Giuliana” (“Free Giuliana”) in honor of Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist kidnapped in 2005 by insurgents in Iraq who was later freed.

35. The most recent message was “Scusate il Ritardo” (“Sorry for the delay”) which he flashed on 8 January 2012 as an apology to fans for his goal-scoring drought after scoring his first goal of the season versus Chievo.

36. As a tribute to his then-pregnant wife, Ilary Blasi, Totti imitated a childbirth scene by stuffing the ball under his shirt and lying on his back while his teammates extracted the ball. His current ritual of sucking his thumb after a goal began after his son was born and continued after the birth of his daughter. Blasi has revealed that Totti also sucks his thumb in dedication to her and not just for their children.

37. On 11 January 2015, Totti scored twice against Lazio in the Derby della Capitale as Roma came back from 2–0 down; he then took a selfie with Roma fans.

38.Totti’s wife Ilary Blasi is a former showgirl who has been a co-host of Italia 1’s hit show Le Iene since 2007. When the couple married on 19 June 2005 at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, their wedding was aired on television with the proceeds being donated to charity.

39. In 2015, Totti’s famous selfie celebration was included amongst the goal celebrations available for FIFA 16 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2016; he also took a selfie in the official trailer of the game on YouTube.

40. In May 2010, Totti appeared alongside actor Russell Crowe in Rome to promote the special edition of the film Gladiator, celebrating the tenth year of the film’s release.