O Efervescente

Mais um magnífico texto, desta vez surripiado ao maradona, que por sua vez o transcrevera do Financial Times:

Simon Kuper (é uma caridade que lhes faço; e a semana passada falou sobre o Dennis Bergkamp, mas guardei só para mim)

The gladiator of Rome who rarely triumphs
By Simon Kuper
Published: May 6 2006 03:00
Financial Times

Francesco Totti, Italy's most beloved footballer, is in bed in a German castle reading Goethe. A stern German matron enters. The blond Totti, known despite his froglike face as "il bello", makes eyes at her. She serves him German sausage.

Happily this advert for the World Cup on Italian television remains relevant. Whereas England have surely lost Wayne Rooney, Totti's broken ankle has healed just in time for the tournament. Tomorrow he should play for Roma against Treviso, his first match since February. In theory he could then win the World Cup for an excellent Italian team, but he probably won't because Totti is both brilliant footballer and born loser.

Footballers transcend stardom and become folk heroes when they incarnate a certain idea a people has of itself. Totti is Rome. He was born in a lower middle class Roman neighbourhood 29 years ago, into an Italian family so traditional that his mother was forever ironing his football kit. He supported Roma from the terraces or as a ballboy, and dreamt of becoming a pump attendant.

"I liked the petrol smell and the fat wallet those guys pulled out after filling the tank," he recalls.

Instead, aged 16, he descended on to the Stadio Olimpico's turf to become Roma's midfield fantasista. Studying him on freezing Roman evenings this winter, I was mesmerised by his pass. Totti plays with his head up, always in balance. He sees the furthest pass first, and can hit it first touch with the inside or outside of either foot, or with either heel: he is in effect, six-footed. He rarely bothers running, but can shed a marker with one clever step.

Totti could have joined any club. Instead he has chosen to segue into middle age with Roma, where his team-mates misinterpret his passes. All he has to show for his greatness is one Italian championship.

"I'm a Roman and a Romanista. That's a status of the soul," he explains in Roman dialect (Totti rarely speaks Italian). He has mastered Roman rhetoric complete with bastardised representations of ancient Rome: the gladiator tattooed on his arm, the comparisons with Caesar.

Roma's fans appreciate it. Wearing Totti replica shirts they sing, in dialect, about a platonic version of Roma in which other players don't exist and there is only Totti now and forever. The love goes beyond the stadium. One local couple divorced because the husband kept a portrait of Totti above the marital bed, where it hung in the spot previously occupied by the crucified Christ.

Outside Rome, Totti's lack of intellect invites derision. So many Totti jokes exist that he himself has collected them into a book. An example: "Totti's three hardest years? Class one of elementary school." The book topped the Italian bestseller list, and Totti donated all proceeds to charity.

Like Alan Shearer at Newcastle, Totti is a throwback: the footballer as homeboy, as fan, who never leaves his local club. In truth his devotion to Rome - like Shearer's to Newcastle - shows a lack of ambition. In Rome he can coast, lauded for sporadic brilliance. He doesn't need to win anything.

He usually flops in big matches. Last November Totti prepared for the Roma-Juventus match by saying nasty things about Juve's manager Fabio Capello, a Roman old boy. Asked to respond, Capello simply congratulated Totti on the birth of his son. On the night, Juve hammered Roma 4-1, Turinese athletes endlessly whizzing past the chubby Totti. He eventually lost himself in feuds: his lack of professionalism includes a bad temper. The contrast was stark. Totti's Roma is defined by an attitude, whereas Juventus don't bother with talk. They just win.

Totti experiences top-class football only when playing for Italy. Usually he is shown up. He excelled in his first tournament, the European Championships of 2000, but Italy contrived to lose the final after leading France with only two minutes left. At the World Cup of 2002 he was sent off for diving when the Italians went out to South Korea. At Euro 2004 he was sent off for spitting in Italy's first match and didn't play again.

Yet he remains beloved. When he got injured in February, the Italian news media - or what passed as such in Silvio Berlusconi's Italy - kept a vigil outside the hospital. Berlusconi himself visited his bedside.

A week after the injury, Roma played Lazio in the Roman derby. Hanging in the Olimpico's fence amidst Roma's hardcore fans was Totti. When Roma won,the other fans ritually hammered him on the head.

His absence didn't hurt Italy. Without him they thrashed Holland 3-1 and Germany 4-1. When Totti is away, the Italians are freed from the obligation to run every attack through him and can move forward fast.

Yet he will play at the World Cup, his last dabble with top-class football before he retires from the national team. Totti seeks personal glory too: he sometimes dreams he is presenting the golden ball for European Footballer of the Year to himself. He probably never will. But then Totti's popularity has nothing to do with winning things.

Nota: há muito que Totti pertence à galeria dos jogadores que eu mais odeio. No entanto, penso que o que este artigo refere é verdade - não vale a pena odiar ou ter medo de um jogador mentalmente tão tacanho. Com ele, seguramente que a Itália não ganhará nada.