Patience is a virtue in the Eternal City. Nobody, though, enjoys being kept in limbo. As a violent storm assaulted the Stadio Olimpico on Sunday afternoon, fans huddled together and waited to find out whether the football match they had been watching was ever going to resume. And then they waited some more.
Rain had begun to fall during the first half, but only after Roma and Sampdoria’s players trudged off for the interval did the situation escalate. It was barely four in the afternoon, but the skies turned so dark that it might as well have been evening. Sheets of water rolled down off the roof, causing lower levels of the stadium to flood, before giving way to hail so noisy that it was hard to hear the stadium PA.
Indecision reigned. Would the match be called off? Official guidance handed down by the Italian Referees’ Association recommends that: “In the event of meteorological impediments thought to be temporary, the referee can stop the match for as long as they consider opportune.”
In this instance, 80 minutes was deemed an acceptable pause. Only in the last 10 were players told for definite that the match would resume. The referee Piero Giacomelli had been out several times during the break to test playing conditions but repeatedly delayed a decision. Unlike some other parts of the venue, the pitch at the Stadio Olimpico boasts excellent drainage and seemed to be holding up well.
And yet, some 300 miles away to the north, Genoa’s match against Fiorentina was abandoned on Sunday after similar weather conditions had interrupted play midway through the first half. This discrepancy was widely noted, with the former refereeing designator Paolo Casarin using a column in Corriere della Sera to rail against “a clear deficiency in the rules” that had left too much discretion to each individual match official.
One man unfazed by it all was Francesco Totti. When you’ve been playing top-flight football for a quarter of a century, you could hardly get too worked up about the odd hour lost here or there. Besides, he had started this game on the bench, so half-time meant a chance to get up and do some exercise.
There was something iconic about the image of Totti performing his stretches on Sunday, all alone in the pouring rain. Two weeks away from his 40th birthday, his love for the game of football remains as intense as it ever was. And he has lost none of his capacity to steal a show.
Roma were losing 2-1 at the start of their extended interval, and had been outplayed by an enterprising Sampdoria side. But the introductions of Totti and Edin Dzeko for the start of the delayed second half seemed to turn the tide. Within moments of play resuming, Kevin Strootman drew a fantastic save from Emiliano Viviano and Radja Nainggolan flashed a shot over.
Totti then released Dzeko through on goal, only for the Samp keeper to thwart him. No matter. In the 61st minute Totti picked out the Bosnian again with a scandalous first-time pass from the left flank. The ball sailed 30 yards and over the heads of two defenders before landing softly on the boot of Dzeko, who swerved past Viviano to prod home.
Roma should have won easily from there. Only the brilliance of Viviano – who denied Mohamed Salah, Dzeko, then Salah again – kept things level at 2-2. But all his efforts were for nought. In injury time Roma won a penalty, as Milan Skriniar (just about) caught Dzeko in the box. Totti stepped up to take it.
He would later admit to having felt nervous, “for the first time ever”, as he stood over the ball. “I was afraid of messing up,” confessed Totti, “because to crown this match with a goal and an assist would be ideal. But then I knew I could not mess up underneath the Curva, and in front of my people.”
So it proved. Totti buried his penalty into the bottom right corner before rushing towards the stands. He had joked to his team-mates, when they came out to join him on the pitch at half-time, that they should thank him for coaxing the sun back out. By full time, one or two observers were struggling to separate the facts from the fiction.
“Totti builds the ark, drives away the clouds, creates a rainbow and scores the penalty,” gushed Maurizio Crosetti in La Repubblica. “Superstar and demiurge, and now a meteorologist, theologian and philosopher as well. Yes, the hurricane will end. Yes, there is life beyond life. Yes, immortality exists.”
There is no need for such hyperbole when the cold facts of Totti’s career have become so extraordinary. This is his 25th season in Serie A – matching a record held by Paolo Maldini. He is the first player in Italy ever to find the net in 23 consecutive top-flight campaigns.
Rather than slowing down, he has carried his excellent form from the latter part of 2015-16 into this new season. Over his last eight Serie A appearances, Totti has scored five goals and provided the assist on three more. This despite not playing more than 45 minutes in any one of those games.
As he stood joking with his eldest son, Cristian – 10 years old and a member of Roma’s youth set-up – at full-time on Sunday, it was half-tempting to imagine them one day turning out for the Giallorossi together. It has been presumed that Totti Sr will finally retire at the end of this season, but he teased reporters on Sunday with the question: “If I’m playing like this, then why should I stop?”
Why, indeed? Neither age, nor hailstorms have been able to discourage him thus far.
Talking points
• So, Joe Hart. As you might have heard, things did not go ideally well for Manchester City’s exiled goalkeeper on his Torino debut. Having been named as “John Hart” on the teamsheet (John is, to be fair, one of his middle names), he then flapped at a corner to help tee up Atalanta’s equalising goal. Torino, who had led 1-0, wound up losing 2-1. Hart scored 5/10 across the board in Monday morning’s newspaper pagelle, but if anything I’d say that the Italian press have been more forgiving in their reactions to his performance than the English thus far – at least noting that he did also make a good save from Franck Kessié in the first half.
• It’s high time that I stopped to acknowledge Kessié’s start to this season – as he’s now scored four goals in three games (five in four if you count the Coppa Italia win over Cremonese) from midfield. Still just 19 years old, the Ivorian joined Atalanta last year but was immediately packed off for a season-long loan at Cesena in Serie B. Previously a central defender, he was converted during his stint there into a more advanced role and has thrived since. He will not maintain his present rate of scoring, but his energy and commitment will continue to make him an asset regardless.
• Someone who probably will keep on scoring is Gonzalo Higuaín, who made his first start for Juventus on Saturday and struck twice in the 3-1 victory over Sassuolo. The Argentinian is visibly leaner than he was in pre-season, and La Stampa report that he has lost 5kg since August. Better yet for Juventus, he looked instantly comfortable alongside Paulo Dybala – who set up his first goal. Oh, and Miralem Pjanic marked his debut with an excellent performance, and goal, of his own.
• If it still hurts Napoli fans to see Higuaín lining up for their rivals, then at least they still have one familiar idol to hang on to. Marek Hamsik grabbed the first goal as they won 3-0 away to Palermo, moving past Diego Maradona and up into second place on the list of the club’s all-time leading goalscorers in Serie A matches.
• The billboards beside the pitch might lead you to believe that Pescara still think they’re playing Serie B, but the Delfini very nearly took points off Inter this Sunday, just as they had at home to Napoli on the opening weekend. The 22-year-old Valerio Verre has caught the eye from his position just behind the attack, but more than anything this team’s performances feel like a testament to manager Massimo Oddo, who has them playing as more than the sum of their parts. What they don’t have, sadly, is a player like Mauro Icardi, whose two goals inside the final quarter of an hour salvaged a win that Inter probably deserved, but hadn’t looked all that likely to get.
• Milan, by contrast, contrived to lose a game against Udinese which had seemed to be drifting towards a 0-0 final scoreline. The winning goal was well taken by the former Chelsea man Stipe Perica, who is somehow still just 21 years old.
Results: Atalanta 2-1 Torino, Bologna 2-1 Cagliari, Chievo 1-1 Lazio, Juventus 3-1 Sassuolo, Milan 0-1 Udinese, Palermo 0-3 Napoli, Pescara 1-2 Internazionale, Roma 3-2 Sampdoria
View all comments >