Yeah Paolo was better than his dad but his brother couldn't even make it as an amateur. There is a lot of current talk about DiFrancesco & Ganz Jr and Abate's dad was a longtime GK but I can't name too many others who could follow in their father's footsteps. My friend's dad Amedeo Stenti was was from Rome and he played for Vicenza and Napoli. He tried to get his other son into the pros but no one would even look at him because he wasn't good enough. He talked to many coaches and really wanted his son to play professionally but it wasn't in the cards. There are many stories like this though....
Pretty sure most footballers had dads who took it way too seriously and were living vicariously through their kids. Most dads just aren't retired pros. Most are retired pub leaguers.
Yeah my two sets of nephews in Italy were one of those. Listening to their dad's, their kids could do nothing wrong. Neither admitted their kids weren't good enough , even though they kept trying and failing with many different teams on countless tryouts.....Their dad's really wanted their kids to make it but in the end, they pushed too much and looking back, it was a very sad way to live for both father and son.
What about Sandro and Valentino Mazzola? Sandro had a pretty impressive career though I've read that many considered his father much more talented.
Before my time but that was a very sad story wasn't it? Just saw a documentary last week on that Grande Torino team and Sandro was overcome with emotion when he played at the Filadelfia for the first time. Giuseppe Meazza was his coach and had to comfort him because he couldn't even bring himself to playing as he was overcome with emotion. Never quite understood why Sandro never played at Torino. Guess it would have been difficult to follow his dad on that team.
I wasn't talking about a son who becomes better at sports than his father. I can think of dozens of those just in baseball, honestly.
My home team is the Blue Jays. At games we have girls sporting shirts that say I love BJs. Best thing about baseball in my eyes
shout out to my man @Vulpinous for telling the story of how the totti icon got it's start here on bigsoccer! http://asromainenglish.com/2016/10/05/san-totti-a-painting-a-masterpiece/
got to rome today and it was a mixed bag. i was flying from berlin to munich to rome. instead of landing in munich, we landed in nuremberg due to the munich runways being shut down due to a fire in the cockpit of a plane. (at least that's what i heard) we finally got to munich after refueling at the other airport, and once i boarded my flight in munich, i realized i recognized the guy sitting next to me on the plane. it was antonio rudiger. no shit. what's crazy is, he posted a picture on twitter on the 11th, saying he was in rome... but there he was, flying back to rome from munich. we talked a little but not much, and as soon as the plane landed, he BOLTED and ran through the rome airport. late for practice maybe as a result of the 1 ½ hour delay? anyway, everything started out amazing until i opened my luggage and found out the totti painting was damaged in transit. i was bringing it to take to trigoria for a photo op that was being set up through roma radio. i was going to have him sign the back. now, i have to cancel. on totti... what?!?!?! so now my whole vacation is ruined. are you freaking kidding me? i have no idea how much money i'm gonna have to shell out to get it touched up and odds are i'll never have another opportunity to show it to him... SUCK!!!
I'm sure he and others understands things happen in transport. For all you know he'd give you something else signed as well/instead.
@Shen-O @shiboboo @romanista8910 here's a little update on the totti icon... the artist was as heartbroken as i was that the painting was damaged. he was in on the whole "get totti to sign it" idea and had given me packing suggestions to keep the painting safe. unfortunately, i'm a complete dumbass and messed up one of the critical steps, which led to the box i was carrying it in getting crushed, thus ruining the gold leaf halo. the artist asked me to mail it back to him in switzerland so he could repair it, free of charge. fed ex charged me $250 to mail the damn thing to switzerland and then i had to pay another $50 for return shipping, but the good news is the artist fixed it good as new. instead of stripping the original gold leaf halo, he added another one on top of it and said "now it has double gold - correct for Totti, isnt it?" so, the good news is, soon i'll have the totti painting back, as beautiful as ever. FORZA TOTTI!