Alessandro Florenzi has always held a special place in the history of the Chiesa di Totti. No, his name doesn’t appear on our site like Francesco Totti’s, who made the term ‘provincial’ a badge of honor. But back in 2012, when the mop-topped kid wearing the number 48 shirt made his debut, this little digital church you’re visiting sprung from the ashes of The Roma Offside–in a sense, one might say that we’ve been inexorably linked to Florenzi.
We watched him take his first steps under Zdenek Zeman,
bounding up and down the pitch, following Totti and Daniele De Rossi’s every move, like the proverbial kid brother he was. We watched him rise from an intriguing prospect to a pivotal piece of the puzzle and, on occasion, as the club’s captain.
While he couldn’t match the accolades bestowed on Totti or De Rossi, in the areas that mattered—passion, pride, and commitment—he was perfectly suited to carry on their legacy, a legacy that only a true-born-and-bred Roman could understand, embody, and, quite frankly, survive.
We have a famous saying around here, regarding Romans captaining Roma: You don’t know why it matters, but you know that it matters a lot.
In 2017, we attempted to capture this sentiment, this almost ineffable quality of a nearly 100-year-old club in an ancient city, being led by local boys, bravely and defiantly punching above their weight class against Europe’s elite clubs:
While each man who has or will don the armband has brought their own unique style to the role of captain, one thing has remained constant: their devotion to the club has been as undying and as passionate as the city itself. From Totti’s cheeky smile to De Rossi’s ferocious roar to Florenzi literally leaving the pitch to kiss his grandma in the stands, the Romans who lead this club don’t hide, deny or suppress their love of the crest; it’s not just a club, it’s not a job and it’s not simply a lifestyle, for them, and their brothers and sisters in the stands, AS Roma is the city incarnate, from which you can’t extricate yourself, not that they would ever entertain the notion.
Never the minnow and seldom the shark, Roma has occupied a unique niche in global football in so many ways. Despite all the constant upheaval and the fact that many of us are constantly wracked with anxiety, Roma always provides a safe haven. Having only been relegated once in her history, titles don’t come cheaply, so they’re revered and cherished like a secret family recipe.
The ebbs and flows of the club mirror the city in so many ways. While Rome is one of the world’s crowning jewels, it’s place atop the global heap has long since passed, yet the devotion and passion of its residents keeps it in the conversation among the world leaders in arts, education, politics and sport.
And it’s that same intense provincial pride that keeps the club among Italy’s heavyweights. In no way, shape or form should Roma be able to stand toe-to-toe with Juventus, Inter Milan or AC Milan, they don’t have the same financial clout or historical cache. Still they’ve persisted. They’ve been a thorn in the sides of the northern elite and, on occasion, the bloom itself.
And no matter what strata they’ve occupied, Roma’s sense of pride, her sense of self-worth, her success and her very identity has been, for better or worse, intimately intertwined the men who sprang from her streets.
Roma may rise and Roma may fall, but thanks to the likes of Francesco Totti, Daniele De Rossi, Alessandro Florenzi and now Lorenzo Pellegrini, they’ll do it with a flare only true Romans can endure and only true Romans can love.
That alone makes this club worthy of your time, no matter the city of your birth.
Florenzi didn’t have Totti’s ethereal qualities or De Rossi’s primeval passion and indefatigable will. Still, when it came to understanding, appreciating, and embodying why it was so crucial for a Roman to lead this club, he was every bit their equal. You could feel the swell of pride and joy every time Florenzi led the club out of the tunnel just as sharply as you sensed the burden on his shoulders when the club faltered.
But through it all, Florenzi remained steadfast. Win, lose, or draw, we were assured that the club was being led by someone who loved and appreciated it in a way that only Romans could understand. Every touch, every goal, all the smiles, and all the sorrows could be seen in the glint in his eyes.
Alessandro Florenzi embodied everything we hold dear about Roma—the provincial pride and passion that persist in the face of an ever-corporatized sport seemingly hell-bent on eroding the very connections that created the game in the first place.
And for that, I am eternally grateful.
