Roma Club Focus: Saying Goodbye To A Legend

Date: 27th November 2013 at 9:24am
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New Roma LogoThis weekend Roma felt a huge loss. Not the dropped points in the 0-0 draw against Cagliari, not being supplanted at the top of the table by Juventus, but for the passing of club legend Amedeo Amadei who died on Sunday at the age of 92.

A centre forward, Amadei described himself as having “a considerable shot and a strong goalscoring sense. I mainly shot with my right foot but almost never used my head, in fact I only scored three times with it”.

Brian Glanville describes him as “compactly built, canny and skilful”, and Francesco Totti hailed him as “an irreplaceable piece of the history of the Giallorossi and of Italian football”.

The captain went on to say that “everyone at Roma remembers him as the goal machine of the first scudetto in ’42. He wasn’t put into the Hall of Fame for nothing, he was one of the best players from those who have worn the Giallorosso shirt”.

Before Roma’s goalless draw on Monday, Daniele De Rossi placed flowers under the Curva Sud in memory of Amadei, the club’s second top goalscorer of all time. His funeral took place on Tuesday in Frascati, where the likes of Giacomo Losi, Roma CEO Italo Zanzi and FIGC president Giancarlo Abete were joined by some 2,000 Giallorossi fans.

Nicknamed ‘il Fornaretto’ (the little baker) after he secretly cycled to get a trial for the team instead of delivering bread from his parents’ bakery, he made his debut against Fiorentina aged just 15 in 1937. He still holds the record for being the youngest ever to play in Serie A, and just a week later he became the youngest player to score when he equalised after half an hour in Roma’s eventual 5-1 defeat to Lucchese. That record also still stands, 76 years on.

Amedeo Amadei - RomaThe 1938/39 season saw him loaned out to Atalanta who nearly gained promotion to Serie A with his help, but it was under the tutelage of Alfred Schaffer that Amadei really started to flourish. He scored 24 goals in 38 games in league and cup in Schaffer’s first full season, but it was the following season though that Amadei and Schaffer would really write themselves into club folklore as Roma won their first title.

Amadei was top scorer with 18 goals in 30 games, including the winner against a star-laden Venezia and both goals in a crucial 2-2 draw with Torino towards the end of the season. “It wasn’t a huge party for the scudetto, it was nothing like the joy and happiness of the last title”, Amadei recalled. “But of course we were happy and satisfied all the same”. The feeling was of course mutual, and the fans took to calling Amadei ‘the eighth king of Rome’.

The following season Amadei’s career was nearly ended as a result of an incident during a Coppa Italia match against Torino. At one point in the game there were heated protests, during which a linesman was kicked.

According to the referee Pizziolo it was Amadei who was the culprit, and the forward was given a lifetime ban which was only overturned after the war. “Later on we all went to a restaurant in Pescara, Pizziolo came with us as well”, Amadei recounted. “At one point [my team-mate Vittorio] Dagianti raised his head and said ‘I have to tell you something, it was me who gave that kick’”.

Amedeo Amadei - Roma 2The striker also remembered that Roma did everything they could to keep him playing football during the war when many players were recruited for service due to their fitness. “At that time there was the risk of going to Russia or to the front against the Americans. I remember they wanted to send me to Randazzo [on the Sicilian front], but Roma did everything to allow me to stay”.

Instead Amadei played in the regional wartime championships for Roma, but during the war the family bakery in Frascati was bombed, and Amadei revealed that “what I earned at Roma I used to rebuild everything”.

Eventually he left the club in 1948 for Inter, having played a total of 263 matches for the Giallorossi (in Serie A, Divisione Nazionale and wartime championships) scoring 147 times. He was prolific in his two seasons with the Nerazzurri before finishing his career with a successful spell at Napoli, and some suggest that he asked not to be picked for matches against Roma. His talents were also recognised by the Italian national team, for whom he was capped 13 times and scored seven goals – including one against England in 1952.

Amadei always remained proud of his Roma, still going to watch them at the Olimpico into his late 80s, and above all proud of his Rome, once breaking off an interview held against the backdrop of the Eternal City and telling the cameraman “I’ll move out the way lad, put yourself here – no one sees how wonderful it is from here”.

Amadei remains far more than just a name in the club history annals; among the first players inducted into the Roma Hall of Fame in 2012, he will be fondly remembered by Giallorossi fans as the king of Rome who brought them their first taste of glory.

 

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