Francesco Totti is a folk hero in Rome, having played for the Italian Serie A club AS Roma his entire 15-year career. Totti joined AS Roma in 1989 as a member of their youth league and played four seasons before moving to the senior team at 16 and the national team in 1998. Totti retired from the Italy national football team shortly after their 2006 FIFA World Cup victory. On AS Roma, Totti plays striker and attacking midfielder, but is best known for filling the trequartista (second striker) position.

Totti has become one of the most prominent and exciting players in Serie A. He was the league's top scorer in 2006 with 26 goals (earning him the ESM European Golden Boot) and in 2008 was named the Italian Footballer of the Year for the fifth time. He is also Roma's number one goalscorer, the most capped player in club history, and was named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers. Francesco Totti is as well known for his ball handling as for his dramatic on-field goal celebrating. His most famous came during the second Derby della Capitale of the 1998-99 season, where after scoring a goal in the final minutes of the game, he flashed a T-shirt under his jersey that read "Vi ho purgato ancora" or "I've purged you guys again". Similarly, when his wife was pregnant, he would celebrate goals by lying on the ground and imitating childbirth.