When Miralem Pjanic put pen to paper on a new contract back in June, it would have been easy to suggest the four-year extension of his relationship with AS Roma was merely an exercise in protecting his value on the transfer market.
Given the deteriorating state of the Italian football economy the reaction would have hardly been knee-jerk, especially as Mehdi Benatia was already making rumblings about leaving the Italian capital and would end up joining Bayern Munich less than two months later.
But there was always something different, something more sincere about the way Pjanic handled himself during negotiations, and ahead of last week’s match against Chievo the 24-year-old revealed why.
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He hopes to emulate Francesco Totti’s loyalty and status with the Giallorossi.
“Totti is Totti,” Pjanic told L’Ultimo Uomo upon his return from international duty with Bosnia-Herzegovina. “He’s a phenomenon who goes beyond football. It’s also wonderful that he’s never changed clubs.”
He added: “Everyone dreams of becoming Totti’s heir, but it’s not easy.”
That’s an understatement. Since making his senior debut as a 16-year-old in 1993, Totti has been as much a part of the Roman cityscape as the Forum and Pantheon—a footballing colossus uniting beauty and success and projecting the city and club on an international scale.
At 38 he is almost universally celebrated, and late last month Totti became the oldest-ever goalscorer in the history of the Champions League.
It would be naïve to think Pjanic could follow in his footsteps, or even remain at Stadio Olimpico for the long haul—such will be the pressure on AS Roma to cash in on him.
But Totti’s loyalty has kept him at the club despite a line of suitors down the years, and Daniele De Rossi has been similarly committed to the Roman cause. Ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League appointment with Bayern Munich the latter remarked that he had never made decisions “based on ambition.” Such was, and remains, his devotion to the club of his youth.
Could Pjanic, who switched to Serie A in 2011 after two years in Ligue 1 with Lyon, be of a similar cut?
No doubt his employers are hoping so, and in manager Rudi Garcia they would seem to have an overseer of a project who could well entice when wages, on their own, aren’t enough to keep world-class players in the red and yellow shirt.
Appointed ahead of the 2013-14 campaign, Garcia has, in just over a year, transformed AS Roma into one of the most stylistically attractive outfits in European football. Bayern winger Arjen Robben admitted as much in the buildup to Tuesday’s match, and in his Monday press conference Pep Guardiola—manager of the German club—remarked that it was “a joy to watch Roma play.”
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Pjanic, by virtue of his vision, anticipation, dribbling ability and passing accuracy is central to what Garcia has tried to impose with the Giallorossi, and in Roma’s most recent Champions League match away to Manchester City he helped his teammates make the most of their time on the ball despite being mostly outplayed by their hosts.
It’s hard to imagine a player more vital to Garcia’s setup, and that Pjanic appears to be thriving under the Frenchman should only serve to further entrench his allegiance to the club.
Call it the “Jurgen Klopp phenomenon.” Pjanic, and many of his fellow Roma players, may end up remaining at the club simply because they want to be there, working with Garcia.
That, and perhaps imitating the legends who have come before.
“[Totti] is written into the history of Italian football,” Pjanic said on Friday.
It’s a destiny that could be in store for him as well.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based writer. Follow him on Twitter