AS Roma captain Francesco Totti has been awarded this year’s Golden Foot Award. The 34 year old Roma Captain was honoured for his lengthy contributions to club Roma.
Last year’s award went to Milan ace Ronaldinho. To give a little information on the Golden Foot, it is an award that is given to players above the age of 29 who still play professional football. The awardee must have great technical skills, abide by the rule of fair play, be upright, popular, be successful and great achievements for club and country.
The last few weeks have been hard for both Totti and Roma. Rumours of tensioins between Ranieri and himself have been doing the rounds in the media leading Totti to threaten quitting the club.
The Giallorossi are in the relegation zone after a poor run in their opening 6 matches where they have only amassed 5 points. Roma face some hard matches in the coming days which they should win if they are to mount any form of a challenge for the scudetto.
Totti becomes the third Italian to have this award after Alessandro Del Piero in 2007 and Roberto Baggio in 2003. This year, ten nominees were chosen by a panel of international journalists and fans.
In the shortlist were Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o, David Beckham, Carles Puyol, Steven Gerrard, Ryan Giggs, Gianluigi Buffon, Raul and Clarence Seedorf. Totti however came in ahead of all of them to be handed the award by Prince Albert II of Monaco.
It remains to be seen whether this award will spark the iconic captain to lead his troops to a deserved comeback. With a tough home fixture against Genoa this weekend Totti will want to give the fans even more reason to celebrate by collecting all 3 points on offer.
Totti expressed delight on receiving the reward:
“The Golden Foot is an award that fills me with great joy because I have been selected by fans from every nation,” Totti wrote on his official website. “The previous winners of this award have been extraordinary players, and there were some big champions who were nominated.”
Photo credit: from harian olahraga indonesia-1
