Champions League: Mancini Loves Himself, Totti Channels Irene Cara

By: Martha | April 2nd, 2007

Totti and Macini, pretending they don't hate each other. You gotta love the Champions League run-up. As the number of teams decreases, everyone gets more tense and starts saying even stupider things.

On the Mancini front, he was interviewed by someone at UEFA about his fantastic goal against Lyon and, depending on how charitable you want to be, either thinks insanely highly of himself or just allowed himself to be drawn into a situation in which he had no choice but to sing his own praises. (Yeah, I’m thinking it’s the former, too.) In the interview, he patted himself on the back repeatedly with statements like “[The stepover is] a kind of trademark,” and “I controlled the ball well, accelerated and went for it. You have to try that kind of thing in a situation like that. I was one-on-one with the defender — it was the perfect move.” Sigh. I mean, you’d think someone he trusted would step in and tell him to just take it down a notch, particularly when he’s having trouble fitting in with his club and all. Mancini did, however, eventually get around to talking about the Man U match. His feelings? He hopes Sir Alex’s crew underestimates Roma, ala Lyon. Dully noted.

Francesco Totti, meanwhile, is quite peeved that, in his early statements on the match, Sir Alex pointed to Daniele De Rossi and Mancini (Aha! Here we perhaps see the root of Totti’s offense.) as Roma’s danger men, and failed to even mention the great Totti. Despite the fact that Ferguson later said very nice things about him, Totti isn’t taking the insult lying down. No sir! In response to Ferguson’s words, he’s taken the logical step of … insulting both English football and the country itself. He doesn’t like the weather in England! Can you believe it? (You know that cuts Ferguson, a Scot, to the quick.) After hating on the weather, Totti took a slightly more mature turn (Which would have sounded better had he said it without the “Oh yeah? Well it rains a lot in your country!” bit.), saying he didn’t care what Ferguson said about him because, in Wednesday’s match, he hopes to “make him remember my name.” (Admit it, you’re picturing Debbie Allen right now, aren’t you? This is where Totti starts paying. In sweat!)

Thankfully, all the talk will be over on Wednesday, when the delectable first-leg game — in which Roma apparently plan to foul the hell out of Christiano Ronaldo — is finally played.