ROME’S LAST GREAT PROTECTOR:

When I think of special players I think of a particular club in Italy that its players seem to never want to leave. A team that was founded back in 1927 and wears wine and Gold, a team with a Logo so unique, a she-wolf suckling two twins Romulus and Remus – this is a myth of the founding of Rome.  The team is known as Giallorossi, red and Yellow, but more popular by the name AS Roma.

Former captain and all-time scorer of the Rome based club, Francesco Totti denied Real Madrid when he was at the prime of his career, preferring to stay with his childhood team and giving the world a famous quote in 2006: “They taught us in school that family is the most Important thing for a human. Roma is my Family, have you ever heard of someone who left his poor parents to live with rich strangers.”  Enough about this great man for now soon I will write it all down for you. But you get the Roma spirit.

The man I speak about in this piece is one who wears his heart on his sleeve and toils and works for his team. Wherever he is asked to play on the pitch he will do wholeheartedly. I speak of a man who is scary to face and even look at, at times for he is possessed by a passion to represent the colours he wears. He is bearded and rarely speaks to the press but watch and AS Roma game he stands out. I speak about Daniele de Rossi. The man with a warning tattoo of how dangerous he tackles on the calf of his right foot.

De Rossi has so far played 615 games for Roma in his 18-year stay at the club. The man simply never wanted to leave his boyhood club. He only trails his former captain in terms of appearances for the Giallorossi. He may be turning 36 years old on the 24^th of July this year and his legs are not what they were as a teenager or in his early and late twenties but he is arguably still Roma’s best player. So when the club he has loved for so long decided that they were not going to renew the ‘Grande Fornitore’s’ contract and he will be set free at the end of the season, my heart sunk. This is a man who turned down every great European side to remain with his team even when Roma had no shirt sponsor and had t sell all their best talents. He refused all of Europe to stay with his true love, Roma.

I was hoping to see a man so devoted to one club be the one to call it quits as he ends his time with football with the only club he ever loved but now they have ruined it for me and the world. Players like him are rare and they are every fan dream a player who is also a fan of the club. A man who feels the pain of a loss similar to a fan and one who feels the Joy the same way a fan on the stands feel. A man who will battle through storms and through pain and injury just to make sure the millions that represent the Yellow and Red are proud. I am not alone. I could put up all his stats but those you will get everywhere else and they don’t show just how good this man was and they don’t let you feel his importance.

When their captain Totti left he became captain and became the last great defender of Rome. These Roma-bred players are gladiators, they will cry after a loss but do not mistake that for weakness for in the 90 minutes you face them or watch them you will see the true culmination of heart and spirit.

De Rossi deserves better and my God it would be so awkward to see this man wearing any other Jersey apart from that Roma sleeve would break my heart. I don’t remember the year but I remember the game Roma were playing Inter Milan and De Rossi scored and his passion had me smiling this man celebrated pulling his shirt till it ripped while running towards his fans. Then he wore the Jersey 4 A jersey to date if I play on a field I still wear. That is what football should be like not this dancing but sharing the joy with those fans who have paid a lot. That was the man’s desire that I feared would drive him mad but I loved it. In my short playing career, I played every possession as hard and with as much venom as he did coz that is the only way not to cheat the game. 

My goodness, I have seen him wear the Jersey 4, 8 and 16 and play the same. Listen, his beard might show you he was only the muscle and the destructive force but my Lord that is not all he did, De Rossi moved with grace Rabona’s, flicks, nutmegs, quick dribbles, a quick body fake here and another one there, he was a poet on the field. He knew when to and not to be flamboyant with the ball. And when he struck the ball he did it with venom as if he wants to send the keeper to an early grave. All this he did for that Red and Yellow. And now they have opted not to renew his contract. You see where my pain comes in and in the midst of all this the player has not said a bad word about his beloved club I know I would be frothing to throw a quick insult but he hasn’t a beast on the field, but a gentleman of it.

De Rossi can only be personified by his loyalty, work rate, desire, passion and commitment to a club that meant the world to him even if it did not end the way he hoped. Probably because he thinks it’s time for a new defender of the realm.

Rossi meant more than football to many. He brought hope to a side that could not compete financially with the new absurd money in Europe, and last season’s comeback against Barcelona in my previous post epitomised why I claim he is the last great protector of Rome. Scored the second goal from a penalty before Kostas Manolas did the rest. As his journey ends I shall watch his last game for Roma with a tear in my eye. He was a beast of a player, a hell of a man and simply God’s gift to Rome to protect them from Europe and the world. He may not have so many titles but it is not titles that make a man great but the emotion that people feel when a man’s name is mentioned.

Grazie De Rossi. What a man, what a player. Roma is strong because even their last great protector defended the realm with grace and pride.