Radja Nainggolan… A man whose name means "King", derived from East Indies variation of the Latin word "regis". You look at him and you don’t see a king. You see an ugly creature that mothers hide their children from. Sometimes wearing a skull wife-beater t-shirt and fuzzy slippers. A man brought up in harsh poverty of dangerous European suburbs. We Europeans know that our genes aren’t really superior to genes of literally any other continent, obviously he also inherited most of his traits from his father - Radja is a Flemish Batak and anybody who’s been to Indonesia will have immediately noticed Batak people can be brash, abrasive, rough, impolite or rude even. They’re described as nomads who have absolutely no trouble living the ancoras tollere lifestyle, in fact they often seem to need to be on the move. Rather proud people whose extreme self confidence drives them to achieving victories on their own, even if it meant fighting anybody any time over a mere insult, while somehow helping others along the way. In Europe, we’d elect such people for leaders without anybody even taking a breath to argue against it, since the beginning of time.

We were witnesses of a curious time where one of such people - mainly strangers to the Western culture - finally found a home, finally thought that he might be settling down and in the process got strapped down by us fans, probably slightly taming his wild spirit. The spirit manifesting itself in the most primal form once his pride was endangered and his integrity questioned; when his comrades were under pressure and attack. For two decades almost we fans looked at Totti to lead the club, but the players looked at De Rossi to lead them. King Leonidas had his Artemis to command the troops but Leonidas was in the front lines leading by example while Artemis was keeping the line together and soldiers in their places, one controlling the battle, the other controlling the fighters.

In the first lucid moments of clarity, coming off the most painful feeling of watching Totti wear a Roma shirt for the last time, many of us thought "it’s gonna be fine, we have Daniele and Radja to lead this team, we’ll be alright", as a cork for the bottle we were putting the emotions back into.

Radja was no Totti by any means, nor was Totti anything like Radja. The sole intersection where their characters met was the natural instinct to lead without even trying to. Totti never would have led Real Madrid, the same way Radja never would have led Chelsea or Manchester United. Nevertheless, he slowly replaced Totti as the king who would lead by example, help others anywhere on the pitch and push the entire team forward by himself, not allowing any enemy to endanger a teammate.

Everyone already knows the story - his father walked out and any child who has lived through a parental breakup will know only too well the deep emotional pain it can cause. The type of pain you don’t notice until you’re a grown up thinking "I’m a messed up human being". There’s nothing he can do about it other than accept it, forget it, and hope people don’t shine any light on it. Sympathy is the last thing he needs, and he would hate if people thought that is what he feeds off of. Unequivocally wrong.

It’s become such an oft cliche that players find solace from grim reality under the shade of the sport they play. Any NBA team has at least one player that will speak of the NBA saving his life; players talking about how they spent most of their youth on basketball courts because going home meant crawling on the ground to avoid getting shot due to constant drive-bys. European ghettos are much different to American ghettos, but Radja cannot deny he is a product of his strenuous childhood. Add to that his nature and you have a man who was never destined to have a normal life off the pitch. His private life portrays a man misguidedly attempting to find peace while constantly being blown up and put back together by his own subconsciousness, every step of the way. The man who never held his father’s sins to his heart. The man who told his future wife he loved her when he first saw her. That is not Radja Nainggolan. The real Radja Nainggolan was the one we saw on the pitch, the man facing an entire army against himself and his helpless comrades who needed him for inspiration. It only makes sense why he felt like he wasn’t needed thus never getting pushed to lose the Edgar-suit in those matches where teams came to defend, already scared and frightened, withdrawn in their own box. Roma was rarely an underdog, but every time she wasn’t there was not a moment of doubt who the alpha wolf on the pitch was from the opening whistle. Be it a Vinnie Jones tackle or his trademark scorpion within the first minute, be it pressuring the entire midfield and bullying the defense by himself until the ball would have to reach the keeper for the Nth time in the first minutes.

Nicotine lungs… Such a trivial conclusion of his capabilities which varied, depending which Radja was needed. Whenever Roma defended from the opening, he looked on the verge of collapsing by the break, yet he never let his foot off the gas until the final whistle. Save energy like Ronaldo? Be tactical, composed, pace yourself? Much like Leonidas’ shield that threw him off balance, those were merely straps saddled across the primal energy feeding off a warrior’s natural instincts. Some would point out that in battle you need intelligence as well as physical superiority, but to a pure warrior that would feel offensive. That would feel like a dishonorable way to fight. Indeed, David did beat Goliath but that did not make him a stronger man. That never represented the strength and as much as the human civilization is built on intelligence over brute force, it is the brute force that is still one of the purest and most admired characteristics in humans. The force that depicts one’s mental strength and endurance to dig deep into his own persona, the unexplored parts of the human brain, and come up with additional energy and power, created essentially out of nothing. It is one thing to plan out the tactics for your battle, but you will not plan out every single move - a warrior will give his best and his all in each move he makes. Premeditated recklessness which allowed Radja to be a physical alchemist - creating waves of energy as long as he needed them.

"Live without pretending. Love without depending. Listen without defending. Speak without offending. One life, one wish."

He, a mix of a plethora of different cultures, traditions, history behind his genes, chose to quote Drake with a tattoo over his chest. Drake, the rapper. For a man who has shattered the image of a clean human body by turning himself into a living embodiment of symbolism with hundreds of allegorical, poetic or even artistic tattoos - including a buddha, a lotus flower, his mother’s name in Elvish, his daughter’s name, angelic wings to represent his mother’s passing, and the damn neck rose among others, he also managed to quote Drake. It’s not that he sees Drake as the world’s ultimate philosopher, it’s just that Drake managed to describe the essence of Radja Nainggolan 7 years ago without knowing it. He was barely in his 20s and he must have still been looking to understand himself, to understand who or what he is, and why he seems out of sync with everybody around him no matter where he went, when Drake unwittingly solved all his questions.

He tied two knots in his life. One to his wife which he himself is on untying, because Brad Pitt has nothing on him in Legends Of The Fall. However, the other knot is the one he tied because he could not escape it, he had found that the knot was a natural bond, as he tattooed "RN4" inside his thigh. From the first time he gave a middle finger to Juventus, Radja was seen as a naturalized Roman. He wore 23 at Piacenza and indeed 4 at Cagliari, but the number 4 only became his trademark with Roma. Why would a man tie a knot to Roma, of all teams? The silly number of coaches causing stupid instability, the transfer policy, the history of failures, the insane fans, the maddening media and journalist pressure. We’ve seen so many players either shy away from the Roman public or trailblaze their way out of town, chased by angry Roman torches. Why would a nomad tie a knot to any place? He already knows he can’t even settle with one woman, but to a whole town to call it home? The place, mind you, where only the chosen few can endure and preserve sanity by growing up within the madness. You think the insanity on the stands is your ally? No, you need to be born in it, molded by it on those same stands, where you’re either a legend or you’re shown the door shortly. Totti endured it because of his love for the club rose into a primal need to leave a mark in history - in the city of Rome no less, but boy was he close to leaving. Daniele endured it, being a more sensible man driven by both emotions and reason, a natural captain to Totti’s kingship. Daniele is always understanding of any situation and all of people’s frustrations, considering the entire city his big family.

Radja refused the big stage several times like Francesco and Daniele, he left his heart on the pitch whenever Roma needed him to, he did everything one would expect from a Roman legend, he scored half a dozen goals against Lazio in 3 years, he destroyed Inter as a payback, he made Pogba his own personal property multiple times and made him leave Italy. He embodied everything we Romanisti have come to expect of our star players. One can only assume his craziness was stronger than that of the city of Rome and Romans as an explanation to that second knot. He never feels endangered in this constant pressure, he dwells in it, he bathes in it. Well, he bathes in his pool, overviewing the insane city which built the largest successful Empire of all time, built by and on the blood of the greatest warriors humankind has seen, save for Sparta. Rome is always at war, and that’s where it aligns with him - his entire life has been a constant war, one battle after another. It’s his nature that creates those battles. Nothing is easy and everything’s a challenge because he wants it to be, he wants to win and he hates to lose - he’s even got that tattooed as well. War is his destiny. (warning, violent and slightly graphic song)

I like making parallels between songs and sports sometimes, like playing Ecstasy of Gold before each Roma CL match because Morricone is a Romanista, but this song in particular had become my favorite over the last few years as the protagonist started taking the shape of Radja. If you think of the lyrics as a metaphor and a plethora of symbols, you can easily see the connection throughout. It’s hardcore rock versus underground rap, it’s Christian religion mixed with barbarism - Radja was brought up a Roman Catholic Batak. The song is as much of an enigma in the world of music as he is in the world of football. Admittedly I am ignoring the true meaning of the song, but Drake didn’t know he was describing Radja Nainggolan either. Roma has managed to inspire something extraordinary within the strangest man to wear Roman jersey as long as I can remember. There is no saying what kind of special circumstances needed for that to happen, but it did. We witnessed a man in Roma jersey that will never be understood but will always for some strange reason cause us to feel a strong emotional bond like few others ever have. Maybe because he embodied what all of us foreign fans feel like rooting for Roma every week and put it on the field? Maybe because Romans saw a foreigner survive, outlast and overshadow Rome itself, fully appreciating and acknowledging what the support and love he received actually meant. Maybe because he quantified the meaning of true Romanista without any incentive to do so whatsoever.

Grazie Nainggolan. Thank you. I will miss Richard Whittle screaming your name.



