An hour into a conversation that has ranged from childhood TV favourites to the challenges of retirement, reflecting on destiny and “what if” moments that defined a career, I stumble into one topic that Francesco Totti considers taboo. All it took was a question about whether he lets his 15-year-old son, Cristian, beat him at pinball.
“No!” he exclaims, fixing me with incredulous eyes from the other end of our Zoom call. “Things have to be earned, not given!”
What other mindset could we expect from a man who stayed his whole career at one club, declining opportunities to earn and win more elsewhere? Totti made his senior debut with Roma in 1992 and played there for a quarter of a century, retiring in 201…