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Sunday, May 22, 2011

francesco totti top football players images and biography

Francesco Totti, Cavaliere Ufficiale OMRI,[1][2] (born 27 September 1976 in Rome) is an Italian footballer who is the captain of Serie A club Roma. His position is that of a striker or an attacking midfielder, though he is best known for playing as a second striker. Totti has spent his entire career at Roma, is the number-one goalscorer and the most capped player in the club's history. He is considered as one of the finest players in his generation[3] and also Roma's greatest player ever.[4]

Often referred to as Il Bimbo d'Oro (The Golden Boy), Er Pupone (The Baby) and Il Gladiatore (The Gladiator) by the Italian sports media, Totti has won many individual awards, including a record five Italian Footballer of the Year awards and two Serie A Footballer of the Year awards.[5] He was named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004.[6] He is currently the top active Serie A goalscorer and fifth all-time in league history with 207 goals
Early career
Totti was born and raised in Rome's Porta Metronia neighbourhood. He idolized ex-Roma captain Giuseppe Giannini and regularly played football with older boys. His mother refused a lucrative offer from AC Milan to remain in his hometown,[8] and he joined the Roma youth squad in 1989.

Club career
Early seasons
After three years on the youth team, Totti made his first appearance for Roma's senior side at the age of sixteen, when coach Vujadin Boškov let him play in the 2–0 away victory against Brescia on 28 March 1993. In the following seasons, he began to play more games and scored his first goal on 24 September 1994 in a 1–1 draw against Foggia. By 1995, Totti had become a regular in the starting eleven and scored 16 goals in the next three seasons. When he assumed the team captaincy in 1997, he began to gain recognition as a club symbol. Manager Zdeněk Zeman played with an offensive 4–3–3 formation, in which Totti was the left winger. Totti scored 30 goals during Zeman's two-year managerial stint.

Though Totti was not called up for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, he was named the Serie A Young Footballer of the Year in the 1998–99 season.