After saving Italy's World Cup bacon against Australia Monday, Francesco Totti is now looking to carve out his place in soccer history by repeating the feats of 1982 winner Paolo Rossi.
Although there is still a long way to go, parallels between the paths of the Azzurri strikers are already starting to emerge.
Like Rossi in 82, Totti has broken a goal duck in the second round of the competition after coming under Italian media fire for playing poorly in the group games. Rossi, who had been unwatchable in the first three encounters 24 years ago, did this with a hat-trick against Brazil.
Totti did it on Monday with the dramatic last-kick-of-the-game penalty that broke Australian hearts. The hope is that, then as now, the goal will release the pressure and open the floodgates.
Rossi went on to find the net six times in Spain 82.
"I had not seen the goal in the back of the net for four months," said Totti. "I'd never scored in the World Cup before. It is a
weight off my shoulders".
Redemption is another theme that links the two forwards.
As in 1982, the Azzurri are looking to heal the pain of a massive match-fixing scandal by securing the sport's highest prize.
Unlike Rossi - who was banned for a season for his role in the 1980 match-fixing furore - Totti is not personally tainted by the current scandal. But the AS Roma captain still has plenty to atone for. Totti underperformed during the Azzurri's disastrous World Cup campaign four years ago and was sent off during the decisive match Italy lost to South Korea.
Two years later, he ended the European Championships in Portugal in disgrace after being banned for spitting. Those incidents raised questions about whether Totti has the right temperament to impose his undisputable class on the international stage.
In part, he answered this criticism on Monday, maturely accepting coach Marcello Lippi's decision to drop him from the starting line-up. Instead of sulking, he came off the substitutes bench and drilled home the winning penalty with the coolness of a true champ.
After the match Totti took delight in hitting back at the journalists who had suggested he is still far from his best after breaking his leg in February. "They hammered me. They wrote that I was half a player," he said. "Now I want to see what they write".
Bruno Conti, another member of the 1982 World Cup-winning team, said that: "it is great revenge for Francesco, the revenge of a great man and a great player". "The look on his face as he prepared to take the penalty was the look of a world class player, who knows how to handle soccer's key moments".
The atmosphere Totti and his team are facing is also similar to that experienced by Rossi and Conti. In 1982 the Azzurri boycotted the press after being panned on a daily basis in the media.
The current situation has not reached that stage yet, although relations are tense and Lippi called Italian soccer journalists "shameful" ahead of the Australia game. So there are plenty of omens to suggest that history might be repeating itself. Totti, however, is not getting carried away.
"I still haven't done anything in the World Cup," he said. "I just scored a penalty".
