• Out of action since October 4th, when both goals in the game were scored by him as well.
• Goals #185, #186 and #187 in Serie A, moving past Gabriel Batistuta at #8 in all time scorers chart.
• Goals #7, #8, #9 in the current Serie A season, leapfrogging past Eto’o, Trezeguet, Pato, Gilardino, Hamsik, Milito and Pazzini.
• Joint leading scorer in the current season despite missing more than month’s action by sitting out 5 games.
• 9th goal in 8 Serie A games.
• 19th goal in 13th appearance of the season (with 10 in Europa League).

Forget St Paul, forget Mary Magdalene. This is how comeback is done with a bang. This is what elevates him from mere mortals kicking the ball around. This is Totti — and no footballer has ever had a greater impact on his club than him.

The update on injury is neither hopeful nor disastrous. Surgery won’t be required, yet, but there’s also no update on when this “therapy” is going to enable him to hit back. In fact, there’s no vague timeline either. He might be back against Livorno — which, to be honest, will be nothing but bad karma for him. Or he might take another month to walk back onto the field. At which point, he is in all probability going to score 5 goals in 3 games, assist 3 others, make the papers a few bucks by providing fuel to La Nazionale return stories and then collapse again for a month.

Whatever anyone says — or whatever his club form says for that matter — he can not play any more games than he does for the club. He couldn’t do so in the Golden Boot form, having him do it in 09 will simply be asking too much from a 33 year old. At least for the Azzurri, Party’s over:

Ladies and gentlemen, the definition of epic fail:

“From Totti too. That’s my opinion. Shoo! He is ruining you! He is ruining you! Just like Real Madrid need to do with Raul, Roma need to get rid of Totti. Is that clear?” — Nicola Irti

Obviously the guy watches some different brand of Calcio than the one which actually gets played. I do not consider Totti to be untouchable, and I criticize him as much for lackluster performances as I do for, let’s say, Julio Baptista. Nevertheless, anyone who follows Roma over more than a grand total of 5 games knows about the Totti effect — which, for an earlier post, I also got statistically documented:

Then, the class response:

“Perhaps only the history of [Alfredo] Di Stefano at Real Madrid can be compared to yours in Rome.” — Rosella

And then, if hiring a retard as your lawyer wasn’t dumb enough, the dumber response:

“Totti is more important than Roma itself, whoever doubts him does not understand a lot about Roma.” — Fioranelli

Notice the difference between the two reactions? The former is keeping its feet on ground and compares Totti to a loyal legend. The latter is perfect example of a sugar-coated turd; no player is more important than the club, period. Totti shouldn’t have been even a part of discussion regarding the Roma takeover. The fact that the he was dragged into this by the Fioranelli front plays a greater role in alienating them from the fanbase than the nature of their comments.

Next up, Lippi responds — pseudo-confessing that Azzurri are in dire need of a seasoned treq. Regardless of the fact that a certain Cassano rushed to training earlier than everyone to accentuate his professionalism, stone-faced Marcello won’t budge on that front. As for Francesco, prolonged discussions are futile. It’s really as simple as this: Sans-injuries/In-form, even at 33 Totti can be a huge boost for the La Nazionale and otherwise he isn’t going to South Africa anyway. If injuries continue to hit him like they did the last two seasons, rest assured that he will not be hacking his call-up chances to make a fool out of himself a la Bobo Vieri. On the other hand, if it’s twenty plus nets in the next season in thirty plus games, then it would be pretty realistic to consider him as a super-sub for the title defense.

Worse luck, almost as an ominous fore-bearing for the issue, Riise’s tackle has already resulted in a minor-injury in the pre-season training. At this rate, Capitano will be lucky if he manages to play double-digit games in the upcoming season. Sadly, Graham Chapman’s quote finds itself applicable here in a much ironic sense:

“Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.”

Another interesting phenomenon to spot in that list is that apart from Capitano’s next target — Boniperti — none of the top 10 strikers have dedicated their careers to any particular club. In fact, #5 even went as far as having a pseudo-motto of changing clubs every three seasons of his 18 in the league.

Sometimes, statistics do speak.

P.S.: To all the Pinturrichio fans: With utmost respect, goals scored in Serie B just don’t compare with the ones scored in top-flight, so it’s not even an argument.

If he had been absent from yesterday’s Bologna equation, the 4th spot would already have been a good-bye, it’s as simple as that. Highlights can be found on Chris’ post-match writeup, along with the golden words: “There is simply no greater difference maker in all of calcio on planet Earth.”

Calmly slotting two penalties with CL-qualification threat looming on mind is one thing; carrying the team on his back with leadership, hard work and determination is another. The combination of both would deserve nothing below a rating of 8.5. As things stand right now, only an amputated leg can stop HRM from playing the derby next week. Let’s hope the hair grow back quickly, the thumb-sucking continues, and that we never get to see the atrocious dance show from him again. I still do believe that it was the Samba attempt earlier this season which jinxed his regaining goal-scoring form.

The same old: If he plays, there’s a whopping 5% chance he’ll go through the match uninjured; if he doesn’t there’s an equally colossal probability for Roma snatching the three points. Mirko’s out for the game, with Baptista and Menez capable of converting chances almost as consistently as I do the blogging here. In fact, despite Totti playing for like only quarter of the season, what does him being only 3 goals behind the team’s top-scorer tell you? 2 + 2 = It simply means the attack is collectively a washout sans Capitano.

So, here we are. It’s only Bologna, but since the fourth spot is already in serious doubt, every match is a quasi-European-qualifier now. The fingers are crossed, the Gods are conspiring.

On a lighter note, a friend of mine posted the awesome-est of graffiti on my Facebook profile today (and she’s not even a Giallorosso fan):

“Seeing how [David] Pizarro and [Francesco] Totti were limping at the end gave me goosebumps. They played with heart and courage for a wonderful romantic game in which everyone gave their all.” — Marcello Lippi

The dream of playing a Champions League final in his own city is finally over; but just as Francis Bacon famously said, there’s no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that lost by not trying.

Given that watching Il Capitano limping at the end gave the NT coach goosebumps, seeing him cover his head in his shirt was definitely nothing short of excruciating for his fans. If only the Brazilian striker had stayed on his feet while running towards Francesco’s assist, if only Mirko had not been so utterly nonplussed, never mind.

I wouldn’t mind Totti sitting back and enjoying the rest of the season from his couch. Despite the injury nightmare he has been dealing with for an year now, he has always tried “being there” for his team. He has sacrificed much more for yellow and red than mere trophies at a bigger club. The immolation of Totti’s limbs throughout the past year touches on being morbidly sombre, but this is what sets the man apart from countless footballers and athletes.

His “great dream” — as was it labeled by Chris in his follow-up post — depends as much upon him regaining his 06/07 form as it does upon De Rossi & Co. securing that fourth spot.

“If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” — Maya Angelou

Oh, and yes they have done that directly too. But this time, they also raced ahead of Chelsea in Group A standings. Here’s a rundown for viewpoint of the masses after European fixtures so far:

Match-day 1 (Roma 1-2 Cluj): LOL, Chelsea are going to annihilate the group with Cluj or Bordeaux behind them most probably.
Match-day 2 (Bordeaux 1-3 Roma): Well, they sucked in the game anyway. UEFA Cup spot for them will be more than rewarding. Cluj is an effing shock.
Match-day 3 (Chelsea 1-0 Roma): Story of the eternal times. Smaller fish plays good, but the bigger one gets the result. Nothing surprising here.
Match-day 4 (Roma 3-Offside+Handball Chelsea): WTF?
Match-day 5 (Cluj 1-3 Roma): Er.. well they can qualify at least for sure.
Match-day 6 (Roma 2-0 Bordeaux): Lucky bastards.

For the fans though, six consecutive victories in all competitions takes a little more than luck. More than anything, it also takes a healthy Captain rallying his troops like an emperor and leading by example like a gladiator. Not even 100% fit and 6 goals in 8 games. And then there’s the vision, passing and late game surges of energy which propel his team as much as they move the fans.

Tonight’s performance: 7. He lost 0.235 for one selfish run in the first half where he did cut the defender by a close-range fake-shot-cum-dribble but he ended up trying too much in the box and didn’t release Perotta waiting on his left. Other than that, Roma didn’t go forward with much credibility during the match anyway so it wouldn’t be fair to single out Totti for exhibiting lackluster attacking. But then, he got a chance, and he blasted a precise finish in the bottom-far corner. Vintage Totti? No. Regular Totti? Yes. And everyone knows that Regular Totti > Vintage-anyone-and-everyone-else anyway.

Roma’s form: D*WW*W*W*
[*] Denotes matches with Jesus on the score-sheet.

It isn’t just co-incidence. Surely, the men of the match against Fiorentina included Doni, Mexes and Juan too. But this has been evident over the entire past decade: Totti takes Roma to a whole another level, period. Whether you dislike either or both, you just can’t argue with that at least.

So I guess it’s finally the time to start rating his performances. Tonight would deserve nothing less than 8. An effort on the bar, visionary passing, and goal from a thunderous shot against one of the best stoppers on the planet. He is back. In previous 5 outings (of all competitions), he has found the net 4 times. The new diamond formation is also extracting his genius from the treq role, and if other strikers can keep killing off his assists a la Lecce too, that’s bad news for rest of the Calcio.