Francesco Totti has opened up in an interview with Il Corriere della Sera, recalling the mixed emotions of the day he retired from football and revealing that he came close to a serious illness after leaving the game, while also saying he would only return to Roma in a meaningful role. Asked whether the day he bid farewell to football was the best or worst of his life, Totti said it was both. "On one side it was more beautiful, because waiting for me beyond that door was a incredible, unique celebration. But on the other there was a lot of melancholy, because my career was ending. I was dead inside, because for us footballers, when the pitch ends, everything changes, a cycle of life closes. I was stunned, I didn't recognise myself."
Totti admitted he came close to depression after retiring. "Yes, there was a moment when I risked depression. It's a heavy word, one that frightens. But I couldn't find the meaning of things. Suddenly the emptiness arrived. I felt alone in the middle of the ocean. It seemed like the emptiness was suffocating me. I wasn't ready, suddenly the ground was gone from under my feet."
He also described a far more serious health scare. "I nearly died. To die of Covid, like my father. They were about to admit me to hospital, I had 87 oxygen saturation and a very severe bronchopneumonia. I spent 21 days with a fever of thirty-nine and I couldn't breathe. Then Professor Zangrillo called me and suggested I sleep with my chest on the bed, to open up my lungs. I came out of it, but I had a very bad time of it."
On head coach Gian Piero Gasperini, Totti was effusive. "I have a wonderful opinion of him. He has managed to make the Roma fans fall in love, to build a united, solid group that wants to prove itself and wants to win. When someone like that is at the helm, everything is possible."
Totti also addressed his relationship with former coach Luciano Spalletti. "We just made an advert together. We had fun. He and I had a wonderful relationship, which went beyond football. In the last year there were problems, poisonous friction that I believe came from above, from the club. Someone convinced him that I had plotted to get him out. But the opposite is true. He had me playing even with one leg. I got on really well with him. As far as I'm concerned, I believe I have shown it, the interest of Roma, of the team, of the fans came first."
Asked whether he would accept a non-ceremonial role at the club, Totti pointed to his past departure. "In Pallotta's time I left three and a half years of contract because I didn't want to be a pretty figurehead. It seemed natural to me that someone like me should be involved in the technical area. When I was at Roma as a director, they only called me when there were problems, to patch things up. I felt part of it and wanted to be in the project, not an image man. And even now I don't want to do that. If they need my knowledge of football, I'm here. Anyway, I will celebrate the centenary, with the people of Rome, with the Romanisti."
When asked for the happiest day of his life, Totti did not choose a trophy or the World Cup. "No, it was when Cristian was born. I was playing in Messina and I arrived at the hospital and he had already been born. When I held him in my arms, I understood what the word happiness means."
