Francesco Totti

Real name: Francesco Totti

Birthday: 27 September, 1976

Birth city: Rome

Francesco Totti is, according to many, the most talented player to have come from Italy over the past ten years. His mother claims that Totti started to play football at the age of ten months when he used to dribble on the beach. At the age of 12, he began to play for Roma and hasn't stopped ever since.

He was still a teenager when coach Vujadin Boskov decided to add him to the first team and he was just 16 years old when he made his first appearance in the Serie A. It was on the 23rd of March, 1993 and Roma were playing in Brescia.

Meanwhile, he made his national debut for the Under-18 team and later for the Under-21 team of coach Cesare Maldini, when he scored a goal during his very first game, against Bulgaria, and with that proving his talent.

If Boskov was the coach of his debut, Carlo Mazzone was the coach of his definite establishment. Mazzone protected Francesco from burning out and began playing him more often during the 1994-1995 season. Totti scored his first Serie A goal on September 4th 1994 against Foggia. In October of 1998, Italy coach Dino Zoff decided to use Totti for the Worldcup qualifier against Switzerland. As the player showed a good performance in the Serie A that year, it is still a mystery why he was excluded from the actual Worldcup squad.

Coach Snedeck Zeman made the most of Francesco Totti, giving him a position of left forward, behind the strong Argentinian striker Abel Balbo. With Zeman came the captain's armstrip, turning Totti into Roma leader. Local supporters went crazy for him and they nicknamed him 'Golden Boy', for his ability to impress every time he touches the ball. Roberto Pruzzo once said about Totti: " The most difficult thing is to find a flaw."

For the Italian squad, Totti's real explosion came during Euro 2000 in the Netherlands and Belgium when he played a key role in two matches: First the one against the Netherlands, where he defeated the Dutch goalkeeper with a typical Panenka style penalty during the shootout. Later, during the final of that tournament against France, he launched teammate Delvecchio to score the only Italian goal of that match.