Francesco Totti leads AS Roma into the UEFA Champions League tournament. Bodog.com has AS Roma 26 to 1 (Bet $1.00 to win $26.00) to win the UEFA Champions League. Associazione Sportiva Roma is an Italian football club and one of the major teams in Rome and in central Italy. Nicknamed the giallorossi (yellow-reds), they currently play in Serie A. Roma's home uniforms are maroon red shirts with golden yellow borders, white shorts and black socks.
The emblem of the team is the Capitoline she-wolf suckling twins, symbol of Rome, superimposed a bipartite golden yellow over red shield; official colors are the same as those of the city of Rome, red for imperial dignity, and gold which represents the Pope or God in Christianity.
A.S. Roma was founded in July 1927. At the time, the city of Rome had several teams in the Italian football league: S.S. Lazio (1900), Roman F.C. (1901), S.S. Alba-Audace Roma (founded in 1926 through the merger of Alba (1911) and Audace) and Fortitudo-Pro Roma S.G.S. (founded in 1926 through the merger of Fortitudo (1908) and Pro Roma (1912)), however most of them were weak financially and uncompetitive.
Spurned on by the government's desire for each Italian city to be represented by one major club (as was done in Florence, Naples and Bari), Alba-Audace, Fortitudo-Pro Roma and Roman merged to form A.S. Roma. Lazio, which on the other hand was the strongest club and which had the most to lose from a merger refused to partake in any discussions regarding the issue.
The club first played at the Motovelodromo Appio stadium. The following grounds have been used: Testaccio, Stadio Flaminio and Stadio Olimpico (the latter was built in 1952).
Bodog.com has Valencia CF at 19 to 1 to win the UEFA Champions League
AS Roma took part in their first national league in the 1929-30 season and won their first Scudetto in 1941-42. The second one was won in the 1982-83 season and the third in 2000-01. They were runners-up in 1930-31, 1935-36, 1980-81, 1983-84, 1985-86, 2001-02, 2003-04 and 2005-06 (due to match-fixing scandal). They were relegated only once, at the end of the 1950-51 season, returning to Serie A the next season.
Roma counts with an important player in their ranks, Francesco Totti. A goal creator of more then one dead ball succesful shot that leaves keepers staring. Francesco Totti's position is that of a striker or an attacking midfielder, though he is best known for playing as the "trequartista" (or 'second striker'), a compromise between the two positions where the player acts as a link between midfield and attack. He is also Roma's first choice to take free kicks, having scored a number of goals from foul shot situations.
Totti is widely recognized as the symbol of Roma, having never left the team despite the possibility of playing in stronger and richer clubs, and being the number one goalscorer in the club's history.
An AS Roma fan as a boy, Totti was just 16 when he made his first appearance in a 2-0 victory at Brescia Calcio in March 1993. He arrived as a Roma regular in 1994/95, and over the ensuing seasons Totti won the hearts of the Giallorossi faithful with a series of electric displays.
Italy's Player of the Year in 2000, he lived up to his reputation the following term when he helped AS Roma secure their first league title since 1983, scoring 13 Serie A goals. He bettered that record over the next two seasons, scoring 14 and then 20 goals in 2003/04 to firmly establish himself as one of the most dangerous players in Italy while, despite a broken ankle, 15 goals during 2005/06 underlined his consistency.
