For a fleeting moment in time Rome wasn’t just the capital of Italy, but the football capital of the nation.
The turn of the millennium feels a long time ago now, but to those of us who lived through it, the era when both Roma and Lazio sat atop the calcio summit feels merely a few years ago, and not quarter of a century.
For two glorious seasons, Rome ruled. But as the old adage goes: what goes up, must come down.
Roma and Lazio would eventually go up in flames as debts mounted, but we weren’t quite there yet. In retrospect, this game represented the final vestige of Roman superiority over the Italian game, when both sides were littered with top tier talent.
It would never get this good again.
By March 2002 Roma were the defending Serie A champions and very much on the way to retaining their crown. The Giallorossi were battling with Juventus and Inter for the Scudetto and had lost just once all season in the league.
Francesco Totti was in his greasy-hair-head-band-wearing prime, while Vincenzo Montella and Marco Delvecchio chipped in with important goals. A young Antonio Cassano had been signed from Bari the previous summer, and the great Gabriel Batistuta was still there, although clearly on a very sharp and sad decline.
If Roma were still very much riding the wave of euphoria of their title victory the previous season, the same couldn’t be said for their neighbours.
By this point the sheen had worn off their Scudetto win in May 2000 and the wheels were buckling in the Sergio Cragnotti era under the weight of money issues.
Sven-Goran Eriksson had departed for the England job in early 2001, then Juan Sebastian Veron, Pavel Nedved and Marcelo Salas —all massive contributors to the title win — were sold in the summer of 2001 after the club failed to defend their Scudetto.
Yet Lazio still had a squad packed with talent. Club captain and local hero Alessandro Nesta was still a huge presence in the back line; Hernan Crespo, Capocannoniere in 2000-01, was in the prime of his career, while Claudio Lopez, Dino Baggio, Jaap Stam, Diego Simeone and Sinisa Mihajlovic were all experienced campaigners.
Yet the Biancocelesti were very much on the descent from the mountain top. Roma were, for now, still clinging on.
The atmosphere inside the Stadio Olimpico was nothing short of electric as the fans walked out to the pitch. Over 72,000 fans were present for what most believed would be a titanic battle between the two teams.
It would end in a titanic demolition.
Amid the crackling atmosphere in the early exchanges, the tackles flew in. Jonathan Zebina and Walter Samuel, to the surprise of no one, guilty of committing something akin to GBH on Crespo and Simone Inzaghi.
The game was fairly even until the 12th minute, and then Roma took the lead.
It was also no surprise that Totti was heavily involved in the opener. Down on the left-hand side of the Lazio half, the Roma skipper was pursued by Stefano Fiore and Dejan Stankovic.
Totti, who was so fond of back-heels he has his own compilation on Uefa’s X page, produced another one. Seeing Vincent Candela bombing down the wing, Totti sandwiched his back-heel between Stankovic and Fiore and into Candela’s path.
The Frenchman, as underrated a left-back as there was at the time, produced a gorgeous outside-of-the-foot cross for Montella, who powered ahead of Nesta to fling himself in the air and head past Angelo Peruzzi to give Roma the lead.
Roma were in the driving seat, and Totti was at his majestic best here, pulling the strings in the Lazio half and forcing defenders out of position, allowing Montella, Delvecchio, Candela and Cafu to run riot.
And the prince of Rome was pivotal in doubling the lead.
Roma had a free-kick right on the halfway line as Montella was clipped by Fernando Couto. Emerson passed it to Totti, who just took off.
Fiore, Giuliano Giannichedda and Couto all challenged and fell, like dominoes, as Totti drifted past them all. He raced towards goal, like a man possessed.
He’d ventured slightly wide of the goal and was just outside the box, but his shot was only parried out by Peruzzi to the feet of Nesta.
The Lazio captain, one of the best defenders in the world and one of the greatest of the last 30 years, was unusually sleepy, dithering on the ball as Montella pounced.
The little Italian nipped in ahead of Nesta, stealing the ball and prodding it into the empty net, with Peruzzi still on the turf.
Nesta had endured a car crash of a performance thus far, and it wouldn’t get any better. Yet it was easy to understand why.
In the days leading up to the game, Nesta had been told by the club hierarchy he was to be the next sacrificial lamb in the summer to keep the club from going bankrupt. The defender, a Laziale through and through, naturally didn’t take the news well.
Nesta’s night would get worse, as he was responsible for Roma’s third goal, and Montella completed his hat-trick.
Totti’s free-kick down the right-hand side was floated into the box and, once again, Montella had stolen a march on Nesta. The striker, who stands at a mere 5ft 8in, met the ball with his head and smartly guided it into the opposite corner of the Lazio goal.
It was a powerful header to match Roma’s powerful performance in the opening 35 minutes. He was the first player to score three in a derby game since Pedro Manfredini in 1960.
Such was Nesta’s horror show of a performance that he demanded Lazio boss Alberto Zaccheroni take him off at half time. By the beginning of the second half, Nesta didn’t reappear.
The former Udinese and AC Milan coach also brought off Baggio, who’d been asked to operate in a full-back role he wasn’t used to. Guerino Gottardi and Karel Poborsky were brought on to try and bring some pride, with Zaccheroni switching to a 4-4-2.
The changes didn’t make a bit of difference, as Montella incredibly scored his fourth — a poker as it’s known in calcio verbiage — 20 minutes after the restart.
Damiano Tomassi shifted the ball infield towards the feet of Totti about 30 yards from goal. Yet Totti never got to the ball as Montella, just like he’d done with Nesta, got to it first.
Montella then took several touches before letting a shot go that cannoned off the underside of Peruzzi’s crossbar and into the net. It was arguably the best goal of the four.
Yet four minutes before that and on a night where nothing went their way, Lazio could’ve had a claim to have scored the best goal of the game. Stankovic, coming in off the left-hand side, skipped past Cafu and hammered a dipping, swerving shot that arrowed into the top corner of Francesco Antonioli’s net.
Montella’s fourth neutralised those claims.
Yet the undisputed best goal of the night was left to the end, and it was fitting Totti produced it.
Now thoroughly demoralised, Lazio were leaving oceans of space in their own half. Candela and the excellent Montella played a quick give-and-go, bypassing several Lazio players.
Montella then shifted the ball to his right to the feet of Totti, who was some 25 yards from goal.
Totti took stock of the situation and decided to go for one of his trademark chips.
With Peruzzi a long way off his line, Totti lifted the ball over Italian goalkeeper. It floated over his head for an age before dropping into the net. It wasn’t the first time Peruzzi had been lobbed from distance, and it put the most emphatic of seals on a marvellous Roma victory.
It was now 5-1 to the ‘away’ side.
Totti had only recently started seeing Italian TV presenter Ilary Blasi, and Totti dedicated his masterpiece to his soon-to-be girlfriend and future wife.
The game ended 5-1, as comprehensive a win in the derby as one could hope for.
“Montella was good in that match, but I just wasn’t on the pitch that Sunday. Sooner or later, everyone has a bad day, one of those days when everything goes wrong, and mine was that one,” reflected Nesta on the game and what was happening around him.
“I’ve never looked for excuses, but that was a difficult week for me. They called me to tell me that there was no money and that they had basically sold me to Juve. My head wasn’t there and in fact I did untold damage.
“Then during the break I exploded, I told everyone to go to hell and I left. I was young and I made a mistake”.
For Montella, it will always be remembered as his derby, despite Totti’s brilliance at the end.
“I would be sad too if I were in his place, it’s not right to be cruel,” he said directly after the 90 minutes was finished. “Even a great champion like him can make a mistake in a match.”
Roma returned to the top of the table, but in the end it wasn’t enough. They finished second to Juve by a single point on the final day, and Rome’s reign over calcio ended.
Both teams went through dire financial situations, and ambitions were scaled back in the coming years.
The Roman Empire was finished. Yet for Romanisti there’ll always be the 2001 Scudetto, and the 5-1 mauling of Lazio.
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