Capello and his assistant Franco Baldini weren’t exactly happy when my agent Tullio told them I wouldn’t be emigrating (to Real Madrid). The idea has always stuck with Baldini, however. Every time I see him, he comes over, smiles and launches into the same story. “I’ve never managed to bring you to a club where I’ve been working. Sooner or later, though…”
He tried to take me to Roma before I signed for Juventus. I just wasn’t sure of the fact that he couldn’t tell me much, if anything, about the Americans who had bought a majority stake.
I got suspicious. If the “new” club had been up and running, had it been a reality and not just words, perhaps I would have signed. Rome is a beautiful city. The people are special and the climate’s fantastic. But the fact is that at that point, nobody had even seen the future president, Thomas DiBenedetto. And the hypothetical trio of new directors, Pallotta-D’Amore-Ruane, sounded like something from the credits for a song at the San Remo Music Festival. “Composed by Pallotta-D’Amore-Ruane".
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We’d talk about those moments in the months afterwards. I soon discovered I wasn’t the only one who had come back from Germany with lofty topics of conversation.
That penalty also helps define me. As usual, nobody will believe me but, in my own mind, I’m much more the Pirlo who stuck the ball down the middle at World Cup 2006 than the Pirlo of the inspired chip against England in the quarter-finals of Euro 2012. Even if the motivation was the same in both cases: selecting the best option to minimise the risk of error.
To be clear, I didn’t do a Francesco Totti. Back at Euro 2000, against Holland, just before he went up to take his penalty he told Luigi Di Biagio and Paolo Maldini that he was going to chip the keeper. I made my decision right at the last second, when I saw Joe Hart, the England goalie, doing all sorts on his line. As I began my run-up, I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do. And then he moved and my mind was made up. It was all impromptu, not premeditated. The only way I could see of pushing my chances of scoring close to 100%. There was absolutely no showboating about it – that’s not my style. Many so-called experts perceived all manner of hidden meanings in that episode. of that tournament – the constant travelling between joint hosts Poland and Ukraine ate into our time and energy. And anyway, can you really plan something like that so far in advance? If you can, you’re either Totti, a clairvoyant or stupid.
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Things have changed since then, though. Football has moved on, and it’s now the centre midfielders who get the most attention. Guys in my position are the ones who plot and construct the play and it’s us who now have the toughest bloke on the other team snapping away at our heels.
It’s always the same – every game I’ll leave the pitch with a load of bruises. I’ve even had Francesco Totti taking aim at me in a match we played against Roma. Every so often he does go off on one, but at least he apologised afterwards. The foul he committed really wasn’t like him and I’m sure he didn’t do it deliberately. I certainly don’t have any issue with him now.