In the summer of 2004, Francesco Totti was 27 years old. And although it seemed impossible to rip his heart from the Olympic in Rome, the truth is that it could happen. "Let's say he had an 80 percent chance of going to Real Madrid," he tells an interview with Líbero magazine. He would have arrived at a Madrid that, at that time, was trying to put together José Antonio Camacho. After his premature resignation, García Remón and, finally, Luxemburg would arrive . The Italian would have coincided for his area of ​​influence with Zidane , Ronaldo , Figo , Beckham or Raúl .

Today, 16 years later, Totti remembers the details of that great opportunity that never came to fruition. "It was not the best time in Rome and Real Madrid would have done anything for me, they paid a lot. I was going to have a contract of around 25 million," recalls the former player and Romanist legend. Although in that "anything" was not above (neither in status nor in pocket) Raúl González.

"They offered me everything except the captaincy. They paid me everything, although nobody could charge more than Raúl. He was the captain and the symbol of Real Madrid," Totti confesses to the 'Líbero' magazine. It was the only condition they put on to dress him in white.

Francesco did not move from Italy. He would complete 25 seasons in the first team of Rome and about 800 games with the same shirt. "I did not reject Madrid. I thought about it, I thought about it a lot. 80% went there. In addition, Ilary said:" I leave everything, I'm going with you, let's make this decision. "The decision was from the heart. A decision thinking in the hobby, thinking about friends, thinking about family. Doing something different from what other players had always done. Many went to Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Bayern. I felt differently like that. It was already good, and also different because he was always in the same shirt. "

And although he never left Rome, he had not yet been able to savor many of its charms, its secrets. They are the consequences of living in the same city where you are a legend. "I visited the Colosseum just three or four years ago. It is surreal," he said weeks before visiting the Trevi Fountain, thanks to the coronavirus masks.

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