Totti: “From 2001 to 2008 I was embarrassing, without me we would not have won the World Cup. I would have gone to AC Milan. My regret is not having played with Ronaldo the Phenomenon”

For his 50th birthday, Francesco Totti gave a long interview to Ivan Zazzaroni for the Corriere dello Sport . After the first preview, today brings the second part of a wide-ranging conversation packed with behind-the-scenes stories from his past on the pitch, his present and his future. Naturally, there is plenty and plenty of Roma in it, but not only that.

“I was embarrassing”

"Francesco, you said that from 2001 to 2008 you were embarrassing." "Yes." He answers with one of his trademark broad smiles. An Italian who was close to me? Everyone said Mancini, but I didn't really experience him, I was almost at the start. He also played at Sampdoria as an attacking midfielder, a centre-forward, a bit of everything. But not with the same goals I scored. I liked assists too. Before Spalletti made me play as a centre-forward, I found them more important than goals"

Cassano and his team-mates

"My team-mates? I got on best with Cassano. Above all on the pitch. Then there was Vincent (Candela, ed.). Antonio and I would also spend time together off the pitch from time to time, and he has remained a friend over the years. Vincent and I practically grew up together. When he arrived from Guingamp he was very unsettled, he didn't know Rome and he spoke only French. Let's just say I looked after him.

As far as I'm concerned, the pitch is what matters. Off it, everyone's good at talking or, before the match, firing up the group. Why don't you do this, why don't you do that. But I have to go and play football, I've got a 90-minute match, I step on to the pitch and I want to enjoy myself. You have to know yourself what to do. If you are a professional footballer, you don't need my suggestions or a push."

A single shirt

"Popularity in Rome? Since I stopped, it has actually grown. Maybe because I was born, grew up and died in one shirt. When you bring twenty-five years of history to a close, you are dead, and yet here in Rome, for everyone, I am alive, very much alive. It is the choice I made, the love I gave to the people and the way I have always conducted myself with others."

The World Cup

"If I hadn't gone to the 2006 World Cup? They wouldn't have won it. If I had won only one Serie A title, two Coppa Italia trophies, two Supercoppe and a Golden Boot, I would have remained, as they say in Rome, confined within the ring road. But no, also because not everyone wins a World Cup. I won it, we won it, but at that World Cup I was, in inverted commas, impaired. At 40, 50 per cent"

“I would have liked to play with Ronaldo”

"My regret? I'd have liked to play with Ronaldo, the phenomenon. You know how much fun we'd have had together. With me behind him, he'd have scored 4,500 goals. With his eyes closed. Like with Cassano? They're two different things. Maradona is football, he is the ball, there are no rivals. Then the others follow in a cascade."

The managers

But I trained with the whole squad and did what I had to do. Of course, on Monday or Tuesday I trained on my own because of all the knocks I had taken on Sunday, just a bit of recovery work. Was Mazzone the manager who understood me better than the others? Mazzone and Zeman. Bianchi wanted to send me away, I didn't send him away, but president Sensi did.

I was influential at the club... I mean that, rightly, I had influence, but I was a player and I was an important player, Roma's captain. It's normal that I carried weight, a different weight from everyone else. But I wasn't part of the round table".

Return to the club??

"The failed return to the club with the Americans? It always takes two to make a marriage. Oh well, unfortunately it happens. You get married and you split up, a beginning and an end, like everything, I think, right? I left an executive role with three years left on my contract, and I want to underline that. If I have to stay at the club and do nothing, I walk away. I don't steal money."

The No 10 to Dybala

"You don't get given the No 10 shirt just because you've played well in five, six or seven matches. I've always said a path needs to be prepared that allows an important player to stay at Roma for a long time. There is no such thing as a passing No 10. In the end, the decision on whether or not to give the No 10 to Dybala or to Marco or to Luca rests with the club"

I would have gone to AC Milan

"If I had had to leave Roma? I would have gone to AC Milan, partly because I had fallen in love with them as a boy. Those were the years of Sacchi and the three Dutchmen. They were winning everywhere and, as an Italian, I was dazzled. They were a team that was beautiful to watch, truly beautiful"

Spalletti

"For the bitterness. The ice still hasn't completely thawed. But it was nice to see him again. In any case, you have to put aside everything that happened, also because I was in the wrong too, as I said before. I was wrong in the way I answered some questions. On the pitch, it all started in Bergamo, I remember it. I came on, I think for eight minutes in total, and I scored. Then in the next match, seven minutes and I scored again. For me, that is God's gift, with Him having placed His hand on my head. He must have said, 'I have to protect this one myself. Yes, yes, it can't end like this'"