Mention the name Antonello Venditti to any Roma fan and you will receive a huge, warm smile in return. But Venditti was not a clever trequartista or rugged centre-back, nor even an iron-lunged midfield workhorse. He has never coached the team, nor has he held the presidential reins. Instead, Venditti is the man who put the Eternal City’s love for the Giallorossi to music, the singer who makes the fans sing.
Born in the Italian capital in 1949, the popular performer has Roma in his DNA: his uncle, Adalberto Sicardi, was one of the club’s founders in 1927. Venditti has long served the team’s cause with distinction as well, writing not one but two songs that have become calling cards among fans. Known for his dark sunglasses and swept-back, raven-coloured hair, he is the unofficial official voice of the Serie A side and genuinely synonymous with all
things Giallorossi.
This year one of his iconic hits, Grazie Roma, will be gracing the airwaves more than ever – because it was released 40 years ago in 1983, the same year as the club’s second Scudetto triumph. In a bold move, Venditti actually penned the celebratory lyrics before the title had been secured. “The song was born out of gratitude to the city and my team, given that the two are inseparable,” the star explains. “I composed it in November 1982 and recorded it on 8 March 1983. I had faith. I felt that Roma would go on to win the Scudetto.”
They did exactly that, ending a 41-year wait, and Venditti performed the rousing, heartfelt number at the official title party. As he wrote in his autobiography in 2009, “The title celebration concert at the Circus Maximus, the heavenly day of 15 May 1983, marked the end of the nightmare. It was the explosion of a galaxy of love, a particle of cosmic emotion that only football and music can generate together. Having always been a soloist, I was overwhelmed by the power of the feeling of sharing. Since then, my life has changed. I’ve opened up. My face is always exposed to the sun. I still carry with me that gilded rose of the Circus Maximus. It keeps me going. It stops me from becoming dark, even over the most serious issues.”
Fans still sing Grazie Roma at the Stadio Olimpico today, along with an earlier Venditti staple. The brooding musician had first seduced the capital with his gifts a decade before, describing his beloved club as “yellow like the sun, red like this heart of mine” in his other great anthem for the Giallorossi: Roma, Roma, Roma. Originally titled Roma (Non Si Discute, Si Ama) – Roma (You Don’t Question Them, You Love Them) – this was the A-side of a single released in 1975, with the B-side track Derby simply a collection of sounds recorded during a Roma game.
Venditti and songwriter Giampiero Scalamogna came up with the song in response to (I’m) Football Crazy, a ballad penned for city rivals Lazio and sung by former striker Giorgio Chinaglia. Then Roma president Gaetano Anzalone and the club’s legendary Swedish coach Nils Liedholm were instantly bewitched by the depth of feeling in Roma, Roma, Roma, and the song was first played at the Olimpico following a goal by Domenico Penzo in a 1-0 win over Fiorentina on 15 December 1974.
Since music during matches was forbidden at the time, the club had to pay a fine – but it was money well spent, as the rest is history. Six years ago, France Football magazine voted Roma, Roma, Roma as the second greatest stadium anthem after Liverpool’s classic You’ll Never Walk Alone. To this day it remains a sight to behold when the Giallorossi faithful hold their scarves aloft and belt the tune out before home games, proclaiming the club the “heart of this city, a unique great love”.
“Even as an opponent, you know the words because it’s so good,” Roma coach José Mourinho once said. “Even as an opponent, I liked to hear the fans singing that anthem with such passion. Now I’m here, on their side, and I want to hear it very, very loud.” Indeed, just a few days after his appointment in 2021, during a pre-season training camp, Mourinho got his squad to sing it together at a dinner, with the players holding up their napkins as the fans do with their scarves. “It’s a pity,” he added, “that when people sing it, the players are not yet on the pitch, because I think there would be more excitement for the boys.”
Roma’s approach on matchdays is to play the first notes and let the fans carry on with the rest, a cappella. But for all its goosebump potential, the song has also courted controversy down the years. Not least due to a line in the original lyrics that proclaimed “T’ha dipinta Dio”: God painted you. Back then, that proved too much for a nation steeped in Catholicism, so the phrase was tweaked to “T’ho dipinta io”: I painted you.
Roma, Roma, Roma also fell from favour between 1978 and 1983 because president Dino Viola reportedly disagreed with Venditti’s political views. And plenty of others in the city have had their own strong reasons to dislike the great man’s opus. According to the Adnkronos news agency, children at the Caterina Usai school in Rome were forced to sing it in class after the team won the Europa Conference League last season. “My son is a Lazio fan and he was crying,” one parent complained.
Whether it’s tears of sadness or joy, sports-loving artists everywhere dream of producing just one track that rouses such fierce emotions – a song that becomes indelibly linked to their local team. Venditti, through a combination of Roma passion and rare talent, has provided two.
Mention the name Antonello Venditti to any Roma fan and you will receive a huge, warm smile in return. But Venditti was not a clever trequartista or rugged centre-back, nor even an iron-lunged midfield workhorse. He has never coached the team, nor has he held the presidential reins. Instead, Venditti is the man who put the Eternal City’s love for the Giallorossi to music, the singer who makes the fans sing.
Born in the Italian capital in 1949, the popular performer has Roma in his DNA: his uncle, Adalberto Sicardi, was one of the club’s founders in 1927. Venditti has long served the team’s cause with distinction as well, writing not one but two songs that have become calling cards among fans. Known for his dark sunglasses and swept-back, raven-coloured hair, he is the unofficial official voice of the Serie A side and genuinely synonymous with all
things Giallorossi.
This year one of his iconic hits, Grazie Roma, will be gracing the airwaves more than ever – because it was released 40 years ago in 1983, the same year as the club’s second Scudetto triumph. In a bold move, Venditti actually penned the celebratory lyrics before the title had been secured. “The song was born out of gratitude to the city and my team, given that the two are inseparable,” the star explains. “I composed it in November 1982 and recorded it on 8 March 1983. I had faith. I felt that Roma would go on to win the Scudetto.”
They did exactly that, ending a 41-year wait, and Venditti performed the rousing, heartfelt number at the official title party. As he wrote in his autobiography in 2009, “The title celebration concert at the Circus Maximus, the heavenly day of 15 May 1983, marked the end of the nightmare. It was the explosion of a galaxy of love, a particle of cosmic emotion that only football and music can generate together. Having always been a soloist, I was overwhelmed by the power of the feeling of sharing. Since then, my life has changed. I’ve opened up. My face is always exposed to the sun. I still carry with me that gilded rose of the Circus Maximus. It keeps me going. It stops me from becoming dark, even over the most serious issues.”
Fans still sing Grazie Roma at the Stadio Olimpico today, along with an earlier Venditti staple. The brooding musician had first seduced the capital with his gifts a decade before, describing his beloved club as “yellow like the sun, red like this heart of mine” in his other great anthem for the Giallorossi: Roma, Roma, Roma. Originally titled Roma (Non Si Discute, Si Ama) – Roma (You Don’t Question Them, You Love Them) – this was the A-side of a single released in 1975, with the B-side track Derby simply a collection of sounds recorded during a Roma game.
Venditti and songwriter Giampiero Scalamogna came up with the song in response to (I’m) Football Crazy, a ballad penned for city rivals Lazio and sung by former striker Giorgio Chinaglia. Then Roma president Gaetano Anzalone and the club’s legendary Swedish coach Nils Liedholm were instantly bewitched by the depth of feeling in Roma, Roma, Roma, and the song was first played at the Olimpico following a goal by Domenico Penzo in a 1-0 win over Fiorentina on 15 December 1974.
Since music during matches was forbidden at the time, the club had to pay a fine – but it was money well spent, as the rest is history. Six years ago, France Football magazine voted Roma, Roma, Roma as the second greatest stadium anthem after Liverpool’s classic You’ll Never Walk Alone. To this day it remains a sight to behold when the Giallorossi faithful hold their scarves aloft and belt the tune out before home games, proclaiming the club the “heart of this city, a unique great love”.
“Even as an opponent, you know the words because it’s so good,” Roma coach José Mourinho once said. “Even as an opponent, I liked to hear the fans singing that anthem with such passion. Now I’m here, on their side, and I want to hear it very, very loud.” Indeed, just a few days after his appointment in 2021, during a pre-season training camp, Mourinho got his squad to sing it together at a dinner, with the players holding up their napkins as the fans do with their scarves. “It’s a pity,” he added, “that when people sing it, the players are not yet on the pitch, because I think there would be more excitement for the boys.”
Roma’s approach on matchdays is to play the first notes and let the fans carry on with the rest, a cappella. But for all its goosebump potential, the song has also courted controversy down the years. Not least due to a line in the original lyrics that proclaimed “T’ha dipinta Dio”: God painted you. Back then, that proved too much for a nation steeped in Catholicism, so the phrase was tweaked to “T’ho dipinta io”: I painted you.
Roma, Roma, Roma also fell from favour between 1978 and 1983 because president Dino Viola reportedly disagreed with Venditti’s political views. And plenty of others in the city have had their own strong reasons to dislike the great man’s opus. According to the Adnkronos news agency, children at the Caterina Usai school in Rome were forced to sing it in class after the team won the Europa Conference League last season. “My son is a Lazio fan and he was crying,” one parent complained.
Whether it’s tears of sadness or joy, sports-loving artists everywhere dream of producing just one track that rouses such fierce emotions – a song that becomes indelibly linked to their local team. Venditti, through a combination of Roma passion and rare talent, has provided two.
Mention the name Antonello Venditti to any Roma fan and you will receive a huge, warm smile in return. But Venditti was not a clever trequartista or rugged centre-back, nor even an iron-lunged midfield workhorse. He has never coached the team, nor has he held the presidential reins. Instead, Venditti is the man who put the Eternal City’s love for the Giallorossi to music, the singer who makes the fans sing.
Born in the Italian capital in 1949, the popular performer has Roma in his DNA: his uncle, Adalberto Sicardi, was one of the club’s founders in 1927. Venditti has long served the team’s cause with distinction as well, writing not one but two songs that have become calling cards among fans. Known for his dark sunglasses and swept-back, raven-coloured hair, he is the unofficial official voice of the Serie A side and genuinely synonymous with all
things Giallorossi.
This year one of his iconic hits, Grazie Roma, will be gracing the airwaves more than ever – because it was released 40 years ago in 1983, the same year as the club’s second Scudetto triumph. In a bold move, Venditti actually penned the celebratory lyrics before the title had been secured. “The song was born out of gratitude to the city and my team, given that the two are inseparable,” the star explains. “I composed it in November 1982 and recorded it on 8 March 1983. I had faith. I felt that Roma would go on to win the Scudetto.”
They did exactly that, ending a 41-year wait, and Venditti performed the rousing, heartfelt number at the official title party. As he wrote in his autobiography in 2009, “The title celebration concert at the Circus Maximus, the heavenly day of 15 May 1983, marked the end of the nightmare. It was the explosion of a galaxy of love, a particle of cosmic emotion that only football and music can generate together. Having always been a soloist, I was overwhelmed by the power of the feeling of sharing. Since then, my life has changed. I’ve opened up. My face is always exposed to the sun. I still carry with me that gilded rose of the Circus Maximus. It keeps me going. It stops me from becoming dark, even over the most serious issues.”
Fans still sing Grazie Roma at the Stadio Olimpico today, along with an earlier Venditti staple. The brooding musician had first seduced the capital with his gifts a decade before, describing his beloved club as “yellow like the sun, red like this heart of mine” in his other great anthem for the Giallorossi: Roma, Roma, Roma. Originally titled Roma (Non Si Discute, Si Ama) – Roma (You Don’t Question Them, You Love Them) – this was the A-side of a single released in 1975, with the B-side track Derby simply a collection of sounds recorded during a Roma game.
Venditti and songwriter Giampiero Scalamogna came up with the song in response to (I’m) Football Crazy, a ballad penned for city rivals Lazio and sung by former striker Giorgio Chinaglia. Then Roma president Gaetano Anzalone and the club’s legendary Swedish coach Nils Liedholm were instantly bewitched by the depth of feeling in Roma, Roma, Roma, and the song was first played at the Olimpico following a goal by Domenico Penzo in a 1-0 win over Fiorentina on 15 December 1974.
Since music during matches was forbidden at the time, the club had to pay a fine – but it was money well spent, as the rest is history. Six years ago, France Football magazine voted Roma, Roma, Roma as the second greatest stadium anthem after Liverpool’s classic You’ll Never Walk Alone. To this day it remains a sight to behold when the Giallorossi faithful hold their scarves aloft and belt the tune out before home games, proclaiming the club the “heart of this city, a unique great love”.
“Even as an opponent, you know the words because it’s so good,” Roma coach José Mourinho once said. “Even as an opponent, I liked to hear the fans singing that anthem with such passion. Now I’m here, on their side, and I want to hear it very, very loud.” Indeed, just a few days after his appointment in 2021, during a pre-season training camp, Mourinho got his squad to sing it together at a dinner, with the players holding up their napkins as the fans do with their scarves. “It’s a pity,” he added, “that when people sing it, the players are not yet on the pitch, because I think there would be more excitement for the boys.”
Roma’s approach on matchdays is to play the first notes and let the fans carry on with the rest, a cappella. But for all its goosebump potential, the song has also courted controversy down the years. Not least due to a line in the original lyrics that proclaimed “T’ha dipinta Dio”: God painted you. Back then, that proved too much for a nation steeped in Catholicism, so the phrase was tweaked to “T’ho dipinta io”: I painted you.
Roma, Roma, Roma also fell from favour between 1978 and 1983 because president Dino Viola reportedly disagreed with Venditti’s political views. And plenty of others in the city have had their own strong reasons to dislike the great man’s opus. According to the Adnkronos news agency, children at the Caterina Usai school in Rome were forced to sing it in class after the team won the Europa Conference League last season. “My son is a Lazio fan and he was crying,” one parent complained.
Whether it’s tears of sadness or joy, sports-loving artists everywhere dream of producing just one track that rouses such fierce emotions – a song that becomes indelibly linked to their local team. Venditti, through a combination of Roma passion and rare talent, has provided two.
