Fourteen years in Italy, between Siena, Rome and Perugia, always proving to be a great footballer but also an excellent professional. Rodrigo Taddei wore the Giallorossi shirt from 2005 to 2014, totaling 296 appearances and 31 goals with the Capitoline club. An icon for the Roma fans, who certainly cannot forget his classic celebration with his hand on his heart. But what does that gesture come from?
Not everyone knows that behind that celebration there is a very painful story. We must go back to June 8, 2003, precisely at 6 in the morning, when a tragic event occurred which forever marked the life of the São Paulo footballer. The season had just ended in triumph: his first year in Italy, at Siena, had in fact ended with promotion to Serie A.
An extraordinary result, given that never before had the Tuscan team managed to gain access to the top flight. On May 24th the mathematical certainty of promotion had arrived thanks to the success against Genoa (3-1): the remaining two races became merely a formality. In the last match played in Salerno the 1-1 draw allows Papadopulo’s team to also maintain first place.
The tragic accident after the promotion to Serie A: Leonardo Taddei didn’t make it
The next day a huge party was planned in the city to celebrate the promotion, but no one could have imagined what would happen on the morning of 8 June 2003. The Renault Megane Scenique in which the two Taddei brothers and three Brazilian compatriots were traveling – including a another Siena player, Pinga – skids near Piacenza due to a tire blowout.
The car overturns several times and ends its journey with its wheels in the air. Of the five, who were going to Malpensa to board a flight towards San Paolo, only Leonardo Ferrante Taddei does not survive: the footballer’s young brother, who was playing for Siena’s Primavera team at the time, is thrown out of the car and dies instantly.
The other four, however, manage to abandon the car before it catches fire. However, the consequences of the tragedy will mark Taddei and Pinga very heavily: the grenade player will take the field for the entire following season with a bandana on his head due to the injuries sustained in the crash. Taddei will decide to stay in Siena, despite the immense pain, and will score in the first match in Serie A against Perugia.
That day, August 31, 2003, the Brazilian celebrates for the first time with his hand on his chest. He will do it another 45 times throughout his career: a gesture of celebration but above all of remembrance for a brother taken from life at just 21 years old.
