Roma captain Daniele De Rossi admits his injury has made him realise “the end is near” for his long career.
The 35-year-old has been out since October 28 with a cartilage injury, and is unlikely to be fit to face Juventus on Saturday.
“When I was young I’d have signed in any way to play half the Serie A games I have,” De Rossi, who has over 600 games for the Giallorossi in all competitions, told DAZN.
Roma captain Daniele De Rossi admits his injury has made him realise “the end is near” for his long career.
The 35-year-old has been out since October 28 with a cartilage injury, and is unlikely to be fit to face Juventus on Saturday.
“When I was young I’d have signed in any way to play half the Serie A games I have,” De Rossi, who has over 600 games for the Giallorossi in all competitions, told DAZN.
“I’m a lucky guy, I’ve done the job I love, in the city I love, with the people I love. It weighs on me to look over the ravine, because I know the end is near, especially with this injury.
“I’ve tasted what it means to be away from the squad, and I know it’s going to hurt me when I stop doing this job.
“Whether that’s six months, a year, or three years, time is running out on my career.
“This is the most serious injury of my career, it’s a cartilage problem, I’ve suffered a serious injury. It would be very serious if I were to tear it again at 35.
“It takes time, I’ve started running and kicking the ball but I’m still behind.
“The future? I have this dream of being a Coach, and if I have to think about all the things a Coach has to do what scares me most is doing 100 interviews a week!
“My father tells me that being a Coach is nice, but it’s a big job. He’s a maestro, because he never had the ambition to be a new [Arrigo] Sacchi, [Pep] Guardiola or [Jose] Mourinho.
“I can learn a lot from him, even the way he behaves every day. I don’t know if I’ll have the capacity, but I’ll travel and I’ll learn.”
The Lupi have struggled without De Rossi, and they face Juventus in Turin this weekend…
“We’ve been under so much pressure lately that the wait for Juve-Roma has been really difficult.
“We have so much pressure on our shoulders, we’re in a delicate position because we know we have to do better than we have been doing.
“We want to play a great game, more for ourselves than the importance of the match, but if we go into detail we know that the pressure isn’t only down to how we’ve been playing, but also the opponent we have, the strongest there is.
“This squad is strong, the new players who have arrived are strong. The mistake we made was to talk too much about the players who’ve left, but we still miss them today.
“At an individual level things are improving though, and the new ones are integrating well.”