When it comes to his goal against Inter Milan, Francesco Totti has no doubts.
“Let’s say it’s one of the best two or three goals of my career,” he reflected.
High praise indeed coming from a man who scored a club record 307 goals for Roma, and yet perfectly justified.
If one were to choose the perfect scenario to score a stunning goal, doing so in one of football’s most iconic venues against a title rival and in one of the best fixtures of the decade would be as close to ideal as possible.
Totti’s goal, the 19th anniversary of which falls on Saturday, ticks all the boxes.
With 30 minutes on the clock at the San Siro and Roma already a goal to the good courtesy of Vincenzo Montella’s opener, Totti receives a pass in Roma’s half and looks to skip past Esteban Cambiasso.
The Argentine fails to dispossess him, but his tackle is enough to temporarily check the Giallorossi captain’s momentum and deflect the ball sideways where the back-tracking Ze Maria lunges in.
The Brazilian is first to the ball, but his sliding tackle deflects it back onto Totti’s shin, allowing the latter to regain control.
Now in full flow, Totti cuts inside, as Amantino Mancini’s perfectly-timed decoy run buys him a precious split-second.
Caught between tracking Mancini or closing in on Totti, Marco Materazzi does neither and backs off as the Roma captain drifts past him towards the edge of the box.
Here, for the first time Totti briefly looks up to spot Julio Cesar off his line. It is then that the decision is made in his mind.
He opens his body up as if to unleash one of his trademark pile-drivers, but instead proceeds to simply delicately chip the ball past Materazzi’s attempted tackle, over the heads of Walter Samuel and Giuseppe Favalli and beyond Julio Cesar’s futile dive.
All without breaking stride and all directly in front of the Roma fans nestled in the corner of the Curva Sud.
Totti’s celebration is in itself genial, as he stretches his arms out in faux disbelief, a man bewildered by his own immense talent.
“In those moments, all sorts of things spark up inside you: skill, luck… everything that goes through a player’s mind in a single second,” he told Sky Sports Italia as he reminisced about the goal years later.
“After a long run, I won a rebound in midfield and a sprint against [Marco] Materazzi. I saw Julio Cesar off his line and instinctively I did the hardest thing: lobbing the goalkeeper from outside the box.
“Fortunately it went where I wanted.”
There was nothing fortuitous about Totti’s finish, a goal so superb that San Siro stood as one to pay homage to the Giallorossi No10.
Taken in a vacuum, Totti’s goal was majestic. In the context of Italian football at the time, it was a new chapter in the thrilling rivalry that would define Serie A over the next four seasons.
Second behind Juventus in the 2005-06 campaign, Inter found themselves proclaimed winners by default after the Bianconeri were relegated to Serie B amid the Calciopoli scandal that rocked calcio.
Juventus’ demotion meant Roma finished second behind the Nerazzurri, a position they would occupy the following campaign as Inter romped to the title with a 22-point margin.
The gap was significantly narrower as Roberto Mancini completed his hat-trick of league titles in charge of the Beneamata in 2007-08, with Roma again the bridesmaid after finishing three points adrift of the champions.
Roma slipped to sixth the following season as Inter made it four Scudetto in a row in Jose Mourinho’s first campaign in Italy, before coming closest to dethrone the Nerazzurri 12 months later when, with Claudio Ranieri now in charge, they finished two points behind them.
The Inter-Roma duopoly’s domination translated to the Coppa Italia scene too, with the Nerazzurri winning the trophy in 2005 and 2006 after prevailing over the Giallorossi 3-0 and 4-2 on aggregate respectively.
But Roma turned the tide in the following two seasons, winning 7-4 on aggregate in 2007 and then 2-1 in 2008, when the competition returned to a single-match final played at the Stadio Olimpico.
If the rivalry between Inter and Roma shaped Italian football in the immediate post-Calciopoli landscape, it also defined Luciano Spalletti’s career.
The current Italy coach managed both clubs – with two stints in Rome – with varying degrees of success. The Tuscan first took charge of the Giallorossi in the summer of 2005, after the club had gone through four different managers the previous season to finish eighth, while Spalletti led Udinese to a remarkable fourth-place finish.
Parsimony was the name of the game in Spalletti’s first transfer window, with Samuel Kuffour, Shabani Nonda and Rodrigo Taddei all signing on a free, while Doni arrived from Juventude for less than €100,000 (£83,000). Meanwhile, out went Antonio Cassano, the Pugliese prodigy taking his capricious talents to Madrid.
During his first spell on the banks of the Tiber, Spalletti pioneered the false nine formation that would ultimately become Pep Guardiola’s raison d’etre.
From the second half of his first season in Rome, Spalletti notionally set up his team in a 4-1-4-1 formation, with Daniele De Rossi anchoring the midfield and Amantino Mancini, Taddei, Simone Perrotta – and later David Pizarro – ahead of them.
In this system Totti, the most traditional of No10s, was asked to play as the main striker in what was effectively a 4-6-0 formation.
“Totti was a master of space, always finding pockets of room that defenders couldn’t cover,” Spalletti recalled.
“He would drift into dangerous areas, making it difficult for opponents to mark him. Perrotta would then time his runs to perfection.”
The move was a resounding success as Totti was named Serie A top scorer with 26 goals in the 2006-07 season.
By the time the Giallorossi travelled to San Siro in October 2005, however, such tactical vagaries were merely at the embryonic stage.
With Spalletti’s colours firmly tied to the 4-2-3-1 mast, Totti operated as the No10 behind Montella, with Mancini and Taddei out wide and De Rossi and Perrotta behind them.
Winless in four games, nine points after eight matches was a meagre return for Spalletti in his debut season in the Italian capital.
Inter, meanwhile, were already nine points clear of the Giallorossi despite away defeats against Palermo and Juventus. The Nerazzurri had finished third 14 points behind title winners Juventus in Mancini’s first season in charge, prompting Massimo Moratti to turn to the transfer window in a bid to close the gap.
Luis Figo arrived from Real Madrid on a free transfer, followed by teammates Walter Samuel and Santiago Solari for a combined €18m (£15m), while Christian Vieri, Andy Van der Meyde, Domenico Morfeo headlined the departures.
Vieri left the San Siro after 123 goals in 190 matches in all competitions, but his absence barely registered in front of goal the following season, with Inter scoring 12 goals in their first four Serie A matches at the San Siro, while conceding none.
Their flawless defensive record lasted all of 12 minutes against Roma, as Taddei broke down the left and squared the ball for Montella, who reacted quickest and flicked the ball past Julio Cesar to put the visitors ahead.
Montella was inches away for a second, only for Materazzi miraculously denying him the simplest of tap-ins after Julio Cesar had parried Mancini’s daisy-cutter onto the post.
It was then Inter’s turn to go close as Julio Cruz, deputising for Adriano, who was only fit enough for the bench, headed Alvaro Recoba’s cross onto the bar.
Totti’s superb effort doubled Roma’s lead and the Giallorossi could have extended their lead even further before half-time, but Samuel’s last-ditch block denied Montella.
With Cambiasso and Juan Sebastian Veron hopelessly overmatched in midfield, Roma continued to tear through the Nerazzurri after the break.
Materazzi fouled Montella in the box with Totti duly dispatching the penalty, before Inter eventually roared back.
Having replaced Ze Maria at half-time, Adriano planted a trademark free-kick past Doni halfway through the second half and then added a second 10 minutes later after the Roma keeper spilled an Obafemi Martins cross.
Veron and Martins both went close to level the score, before the Argentine and Totti squared off in a heated exchange in injury time which resulted in both receiving their marching orders.
Had Roma turned a corner at the San Siro? Wins against Ascoli and Messina suggested so, but a five-game winless run which included a 4-1 shellacking at home at the hands of Juventus soon put paid to the thought.
Spalletti had deployed Totti as the main striker for the last three of those five games and, belatedly, Roma’s season ignited.
With their captain thriving up-front, the Giallorossi won 10 consecutive matches, before Totti was ruled out with a broken fibula that almost cost him a spot in the Italy squad for the 2006 World Cup.
Totti finished the season with 15 goals and nine assists to his name in 24 Serie A appearances, while Roma limped to third place after winning just four of their last 12 matches.
The loss against Roma, meanwhile, was Inter’s first and only defeat until they lost to Fiorentina and Juventus in consecutive weeks in February.
The Nerazzurri weren’t to know it, but their era of domination was just a Calciopoli scandal away from beginning.
