The iconic football players of the Roman teams - Top scorers

 Francesco Totti                                     Silvio Piola

Although in the latest years both the two main football teams of the city of Rome, AS Roma and SS Lazio, are consistently within the top ranked in the Serie A championship, taken together they have won only 5 championships (3 AS Roma and 2 SS Lazio), less than those won by Torino FC or Bologna FC, 7 each of those teams, and much less than those won by the three big teams, Juventus FC, 32 titles, AC Milan and FC Internazionale Milano, 18 titles both.

Nevertheless they share a record at the level of players. The two top scorers in the history of Serie A are symbols of the two teams of Rome, Silvio Piola for SS Lazio and Francesco Totti for AS Roma.

Silvio Piola scored 274 goals in Serie A and 16 in Divisione Nazionale, the league that replaced Serie A for one year at the end of World War II, for a total of 290 goals. He scored half of those while playing for SS Lazio between 1934 and 1943, when he was at the top of his career.
Francesco Totti has scored till now 250 goals in the Serie A during his career, playing only with AS Roma. His played his first match in 1993 and he is still active at the age of 40.
Piola and Totti have also in common an extremely long career. Piola played his first match in Serie A at the age of 16 and the last one when he was 41 years old. Also Totti has played his first match when he was 16 years old and has not yet announced the moment he will retire, still being often decisive in the matches of AS Roma.
Silvio Piola was born in 1919 in Robbio, a small village close to Pavia in Lombardy, by a family of Vercelli, a city of Piedmont that had temporarly moved for business reasons. He started the career in the Pro Vercelli team, at those times one of the strongest in Italy, playing there till 1934. In that year he was transferred to SS Lazio because of the strong pressures of the president of the Italian footbal federation, and important member of the fascist party, that was a great supporter of SS Lazio. He played nine years in Rome and in that period he became world champion with the Italian team that won the World Cup on 1938. He was, in that circumstance, the top scorer of the team and scored two goals in the final match against Hungary.

Piola playing for Italy                     Victory in 1938 World Cup

When his experience at SS Lazio finished, he went back to Piedmont playing for Torino FC, Juventus FC and Novara Calcio, continuing to score plenty of goals. At the age of 39 he played his last match with the Italian national team. His record with the Azzurri team is impressive; in 34 matches he scored 30 goals.
Silvio Piola is considered to be one of the best strikers of all times. He was both physically and technically strong so that he could play in several roles although his preferred one was cetre-forward. He revolutioned that role playing constantly with his back to the goal so that he could see the development of the game, keep the ball after receiving it so allowing the teammates to advance and receive his passes.
Silvio Piola was able to score in all possible ways, including the hands. His most famous goal was scored with his hand in 1939 in a match Italy vs. England finished 2 to 2 and played in Milan. It appears then clear that England has a strong story with goals scored with hands; the most famous one of football history is, infact, the one by Diego Armando Maradona with "la mano de Dios" (the God's hans) during the 1986 World Cup.
The stadiums of Vercelli and Novara are today named after Silvio Piola. 

While Piola arrived to Rome when he was already famous, Francesco Totti is a genuine, pure Roman, born and grown close to Porta Metronia, few hundred meters away from the cathedral of Rome, the Basilica of St. John Lateran. At t
he corner of via Farsalo with via Apulia it is possible to see a big painting on the wall of the school where he was going when he was a kid.
All his professional career has been with AS Roma. He has become the captain of the team at the age of 22 and that is a record in the history of Serie A. He also holds the record of more goals scored for the same team.
While Piola was first of all a striker, Totti is primarily a playmaker. The role he has played more often is that of attacking midfielder. He has scored till now 250 goals but even more goals have been originated by his passes. His main skill is to be able to anticipate the movements of temmates and opponents so he can pass the ball on first intention so that the defenders do not have the time to be prepared.

The chipped penalty

The most famous goal that has been scored by Totti is one that does not appear in the official statistics. It is the chipped penalty during the shootouts of the semifinal Italy against The Netherlands in the Euro 2000 competition.

World Cup 2006

Francesco Totti also has won a title of worl champion at Germany 2006 FIFA Word Cup. Three and half months before the beginning of the World Cup, Totti suffered a severe injury, broken left fibula and ligament damage, during a league match against Empoli. His participation to the World Cup seemed to be impossible, but not for his wish. Also encouraged by the trainer of the Azzurri team, Marcello Lippi that had built the team around his characteristics, he underwen to a risky surgery to be able to return on time. Less then three months after the injury he was again on the field with a metal plaque attached to his left ankle. Despite not playing brilliantly during the World Cup, he was decisive for the Italian team. He served the most assists in the tournament and scored an injury time penalty in the match against Australia, won by Italy 1 to 0.
 The final match against France has been his last with the Italian national team. At the 61st minute he was substituted by his AS Roma teammate Daniele De Rossi, another native Roman that has always played in the same team, that, not to be second to anyone, holds another goal scoring record. He is the midfielder that has scored more goals in the history of the Azzurri team post World War II, 19 up to now although playing essentially as defensive midfielder and, sometimes, also as defender.

All the matches of Serie A can be followed at San Lorenzo Guest House on satellite TV