In his quarter century as the star of A. S. Roma, Totti has become a revered symbol in an increasingly beleaguered city.<\/b>
\nROME \u2014 The first half of Francesco Totti\u2019s last ever game in an A. S. Roma soccer jersey ended, and the fans at the Roma Club spilled onto the street in a sour mood.
\u201cIt\u2019s a sad day, \u201d said Luigi Carinci, 65, who had sat in the front row in Testaccio, the neighborhood that is the club\u2019s spiritual home, and dabbed his eyes whenever the screen showed Totti stretching his legs or sipping water on the bench. \u201cRome is a mess. The bus never comes, they don\u2019 t pick up the garbage and the cops do nothing. Now Totti\u2019s leaving. It\u2019s the last thing we need.\u201d
Totti\u2019s final game on Sunday, after a quarter century with Roma that has made him the most celebrated and beloved player in the club\u2019s history, was a kick in the stomach to a city already knocked to the ground and then rolled into a pothole filled with trash.
The past decade or so has not been kind to Rome. Garbage piles up in the piazzas. The parks look like littered Iowa cornfields. The city\u2019s sputtering economy hemorrhages jobs and its mayor\u2019s name has become a national byword for urban disaster.
But at least it had Totti.
The Golden Child. The Phenomenon. The Captain. The Legend. The greatest player who ever wore the Roma jersey, and one who grew up not far from the Coliseum, as a die-hard fan. He refused to leave Rome \u2014 the team or the city \u2014 no matter how much money bigger clubs threw at him. Fans, including some supporters of the rival Roman club, Lazio, called him \u201cThe symbol of Rome, \u201d \u201cThe Emblem of Rome, \u201d \u201cRome.\u201d
\u201cRome is a city of symbols, the pope, the Coliseum. And Totti is part of this, \u201d said Maurizio Crosetti, a sportswriter for La Repubblica, who considered Totti essential for beleaguered Romans who struggled to tell a good story about themselves. \u201cHe was something not to be ashamed of.\u201d
And so Romans, both fans and citizens, took his departure especially hard.
\u201cToday it\u2019s hard to live in Rome, \u201d said Giulio Lucarelli, whose Core de Roma restaurant, on Totti\u2019s childhood street, is essentially a shrine to the \u201cyellow and red, \u201d as the Roma team is often called for its team colors. \u201cThe image of Rome has yellowed from the vivid yellow and red of the glory days.\u201d
Totti\u2019s career spanned more than 25 years. He first caught the notice of soccer aficionados at age 12 as a junior player in Roma\u2019s youth teams. He broke into the first team in 1993 at age 16, dazzling the city with his skill and imagination.
He wore his Romanness on his tongue, with an accent and a homespun vocabulary that outsiders mocked but that Romans loved. He embraced his role as an ambassador for the city\u2019s ordinary people in television ads and Totti joke books.
And then, in 2001, he visited a miracle upon the city. With Rome already spick and span after preparations for the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s Jubilee year celebrations in 2000, Totti led his club to a long elusive national championship.
The city basically lost its collective mind.
Totti, disguised in a bandanna and red and yellow face paint, went with Lucarelli to parties in Testaccio and at the Circus Maximus, where a million people showed up and a famous actress, in attendance at Totti\u2019s last game, performed a strip tease.
\u201cRome was a more joyous city. There was enthusiasm, fun, now it is darker; melancholy, \u201d said Alessandro Vocalelli, the editor of Corriere dello Sport. \u201cNow that Totti stops playing, many people will feel a little older, suddenly grown up.\u201d
Aged 40 and weathered, with a famous showgirl wife and three children, Totti had found his role diminished this season: He was usually playing as a substitute. The team\u2019s management had decided his time had come.
The holder of so many records wasn\u2019 t happy about it, and he made sure, with a sour Facebook post, that everyone knew he was being forced out. Mostly, however, he handled the situation with grace and humility. The papers speculated that he might move to another club in the United States or Asia, but never in Italy.
\u201cWe\u2019 d kill him, \u201d said Lorenzo Ciliberti, 23, who wore a No. 10 Totti jersey as he stood in a circle drinking beers in Piazza Vittorio, now overrun with homeless men and vagabonds, some of whom used its palm trees as toilets.
Crimson Totti jerseys were everywhere on the afternoon of the game, as fans sidestepped pizza crusts and broken beer bottles to make pilgrimages to a 2001-vintage mural of the player pointing to the sky. They marched across the Circus Maximus, now only partly mowed, like a half shaven face.
As game time approached, Sergio Rosi, 80, opened the gates of the Roma Club in Testaccio. The walls were covered in pictures of the club and of Totti through the ages. Here he was raising trophies, posing for the national team, getting married.
\u201cWe Romans are all in mourning, \u201d said Rosi, pausing to yell \u201cForza Roma!\u201d (\u201cLet\u2019s go, Roma!\u201d) at the people yelling \u201cForza Roma!\u201d to him. The state of the city, he said, had made the loss that much more bitter. \u201cFor two months they didn\u2019 t clean this street, \u201d he said. \u201cThe filthy animals!\u201d
The game started, with Totti on the bench. Roma, in the hunt for the second-place slot, gave up an early goal to lowly Genoa. The screen showed Totti\u2019s anguished face. Carinci dabbed his eyes in the front row.
The second half started and \u2014 to some surprise, and applause \u2014 Totti entered not long after the break. Roma soon scored a go-ahead goal and Rosi rose to blast a deafening siren and pump his fists.
The club members then waved disgustedly at the screen and Totti shook his head on the field after Genoa tied the match at 2-2. Then Roma scored the winning goal. With only minutes left, Totti kept control of the ball, eating up the clock by kicking the ball off the shins of his opponents and out of bounds.
\u201cHe\u2019s a maestro at this, \u201d the television commentator said.
After the game, a Totti took a victory lap around the stadium accompanied by his wife and children, including his son, Cristian, 11, who many hope might carry his father\u2019s torch.
As the theme from \u201cGladiator\u201d gave way to Elton John\u2019s \u201cThe Circle of Life, \u201d Totti started weeping. Bawling. So did the members of the Roma Club, old and young, men and women. They sang the chorus of the team song \u2014 \u201cRoma Roma Roma\u201d \u2014 and wept. They held their children and wept. They screamed \u201cmortacci loro\u201d and wept. One man, wearing a \u201cThere\u2019s Only One Captain\u201d shirt, wrote his son at the stadium and asked for an update.
\u201cWeeping, \u201d his son\u2019s reply read.
As Totti read out a letter (\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to switch off the light. Now I am afraid\u201d) the faces of thousands of fans contorted with tearful anguish. In the club, Rosi started pouring white wine with an A. S. Roma label. \u201cI feel awful, \u201d he said, from behind a small plaque that referred to Totti as the \u201cKing of Rome.\u201d \u201cNow we will realize it. That he is gone.\u201d
But not just yet. A couple of hours later, Totti and his family arrived at La Villetta, a favorite restaurant. There was a barrage of kisses from loved ones, several of whom said they had spent the game in tears.
As homeless men made their beds on the sidewalk in front of Totti\u2019s old haunt, a handful of fans in No. 10 jerseys peered through the windows. Like them, Totti still wore shorts, but he had traded in his jersey for a red polo shirt.<\/p>\n

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