Roma coach Luciano Spalletti was full of praise for Francesco Totti after he played the full 90 minutes of his side's 4-0 win over Crotone on Wednesday night -- and set up a goal -- just days ahead of his 40th birthday.
All that was missing from the performance from Roma captain Totti was a goal, which would have been his 250th in Serie A, but Spalletti nevertheless paid tribute to his No. 10.
"I expected it to be a tough game and I feared there may be no fluidity in it; that it would all get clogged up, and this is why I played Totti," Spalletti said in La Gazzetta dello Sport. "He is always capable of creating something, even with the most banal of balls.
"I would like the team to acquire the quality he has in his touches and take him as an example."
Totti turns 40 next Tuesday and his outing against Crotone was his first full 90-minute appearance since the end of May 2015, leading to praise from Crotone coach Davide Nicola.
"Totti lives one minute ahead of everybody else," Nicola said in his postmatch news conference.
"If only I could put my own players' clocks forward a minute ... his intuition is phenomenal. To be decisive still at 40 means he has an engine but also the ability to give people so many emotions, and a passion which goes beyond all barriers."