Francesco Totti, the iconic Roma captain, recently gave an extensive interview to celebrate Alessandro Del Piero’s 50th birthday. The two Italian football legends, once seen as rivals, have maintained a strong friendship throughout their careers and beyond.
Totti began by expressing his disbelief at Del Piero’s milestone: “It seems hard to believe. Fifty years. It feels like yesterday we were two eighteen, twenty-year-old boys. Far apart, mind you: he was winning league titles, playing in the Champions Cup. Me… well, it took me a bit longer. But we watched each other, studied each other, maybe even sought each other out, even as youngsters.”
Addressing the perceived rivalry between them, Totti explained, “Rivalry? Maybe, at the beginning. He said it well once: we were more accomplices than rivals. Then there were those who would have benefited from us being rivals: he represented Juventus, I almost its opposite, Roma and Rome, which some people don’t like and have never liked. But we never fell into this game, on the contrary. We respected each other precisely because we understood each other’s role. The responsibilities of representing something that went beyond the individual team.”
Totti recalled a moment that sparked their connection: “Yes, on my debut I came on as his substitute, and at the moment of the change, he winked at me: I think our rapport began to develop from that gesture. The World Cup was the closing of the circle. Because if at Euro 2000 we were almost alternatives, in Germany we were complementary. And perhaps we are also complementary in character: he’s more reserved, I’m more outgoing. But we’ve always gotten along, maybe that’s why too.”
The Roma legend also shared an amusing anecdote from their time together in the national team: “Before the final, we were all awake, unable to sleep. At one point, it must have been around two o’clock, he says to us: ‘Well, I’m used to finals, I’m going to sleep…’ We said all sorts of things to him, but this is Alessandro in a nutshell. A great fifty-year-old.”
