My night on the town with Martín Castrogiovanni

Standing in Rome’s Piazza San Cosimato, I think I know what is coming. The meet-point – a pharmacy in the middle of the cobbled, bustling Trastevere district – and time of 7pm have been set by an intermediary. Now, the waiting game.

My mission in the Italian capital is to find one of rugby’s most iconic, most distinctive heroes: Martin Castrogiovanni. As mysterious as he is mammoth, the prop remains one of Italy’s – and the Premiership’s – most decorated players, having won 119 caps during the Azzurri’s golden era, and lifting six trophies during his seven-year stint with Leicester Tigers.

His last association with rugby was in 2016, when he retired after being sacked by Racing 92 for partying in Las Vegas with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, an end that only served to enhance his legend.

I have come to Trastevere in search of the real Castrogiovanni, not the myth: the Castrogiovanni who partied with Zlatan; the Castrogiovanni who stormed into a Leicester press conference to call Richard Cockerill a “c---” while at Toulon; the Castrogiovanni who sent social media into meltdown last summer, accused of fiddling his eligibility for the Azzurri. As the clock approaches 7pm, I am strapping myself in for a hurricane of an evening.

‘Where did I meet my wife? Tinder’

There is a commotion in one corner of the Piazza. I spot an hirsute man, pony-tailed, more slender than expected, walking hand-in-hand with a partner. The figure has the appearance of Castrogiovanni; the cries of “Castro!” from the trattoria’s punters confirm it.

Castrogiovanni is holding a tub of ice cream and a scoop, which comes as a surprise as we are supposed to be heading to dinner. But this is Italy and this is Castro, of course, so the rules of the game are not applied quite so strictly.

We shake hands but Castrogiovanni, beard stained with ice cream, seems diffident and indifferent. Not quite cold, but more stand-offish than expected. He introduces his wife, Daniela, who is the opposite: vibrant, charming and full of Italian fizz. She is a 46-year-old former fashion executive who is now Castrogiovanni’s personal assistant.

We stroll through Trastevere. I remain slightly on edge, if for no other reason than Castrogiovanni’s somewhat cold shoulder.

“I hate it when people leave the scooters lying on the road,” he blurts, while muttering in Italian. “F---ing b-------.

“They say ‘Rome is really dirty because of the tourists’. No, it’s not the tourists, it’s the Roman people!”

I ask where he and Daniela met. “Tinder,” he says, expressionless, staring into my eyes. The seconds tick; although people finding their soulmates on Tinder has grown more common in recent years, it remains rare for two 40-somethings. I am slightly taken aback, before: “Just joking,” he replies, descending into wild laughter, explaining to Daniela and our accompanying photographer how much of a fool I looked. “Yeah, he was my biggest fan on OnlyFans – and then I married him,” Daniela replies, giggling.

“I was the one who paid the most!” Castrogiovanni wails.

I am later to discover this is not quite true, but from that moment on the frostiness melts away, exposing one of rugby’s kindest, most hospitable and most misunderstood souls, a world away from his crude, hell-raising reputation.

‘I’m 42 now. It was time to be content’

In 2017 Castrogiovanni traded the scrum for the rumba, appearing on the Italian version of Strictly Come Dancing. Off the back of his success on that show, the former tighthead now presents Tú sí que vales, Italy’s version of Britain’s Got Talent. That’s right. Castrogiovanni, that unyielding front-row forward, is now the Italian equivalent of Ant & Dec (or, at least, one considerable half of them). He and Daniela, residents of Trastevere, are the proud owners of two sausage dogs – Tito and Gilda – and a rescue called Blanco, too.

We enter Bar San Calisto with its packed terrace, just around the corner from Piazza di Santa Maria. Castrogiovanni waves to the owners before being ambushed for pictures – but they are not with rugby fans. This is Castrogiovanni MkII, television celebrity extraordinaire, on his stomping ground. Castrogiovanni and Daniela frequent this bar for either morning coffee with the dogs or sun-soaked spritz. On this occasion, with me in tow, it is the latter. Castrogiovanni orders a fernet and coke, an Argentinian staple. We leave without paying, but not for lack of trying. The owner would not accept money from either me or one of his country’s A-listers, who also happened to play rugby. Castrogiovanni has little to no involvement in the sport now - except for a charity endeavour with wheelchair rugby - but, by the look of things, he does not need it. He has outgrown it.

“I never watched any of Martin’s matches,” Daniela admits unashamedly.

“You didn’t miss anything!” Castrogiovanni says as we stroll to the restaurant Daniela has booked. “I’m 42 now. It was time to be content. I don’t know what I want to do when I’m old. I still don’t know. Maybe a television presenter. I don’t know yet.

“It would be nice to do something in England but I don’t have an English agent. Last year, I went to Twickenham as a fan for the first time. For England against Italy. Lawrence Dallaglio invited me to the Green Room at the stadium.”

“It was very funny,” Daniela interjects.

“It was the English way to watch sport,” Castrogiovanni says.

“Drink a lot,” Daniela adds.

“Banter people and take the p---,” Castrogiovanni says. “But my English is like Borat’s.”

‘I’m not Italian? Yeah, the Mona Lisa isn’t French’

After seven years at Welford Road, Castrogiovanni’s English is actually excellent, as is Daniela’s, after spending time at college in Great Malvern during her youth. The walk provides an auspicious moment for me to ask about last year’s eligibility furore; for him to set the record straight.

In an interview with Rugby Champagne, an Argentinian outlet, Castrogiovanni said that he did not qualify for Italy through his grandparents but through his great-grandparents, which might have made him ineligible. The interview was published at the same time as Spain were being booted out of the World Cup for fielding an ineligible player, so, social media erupted.

“I don’t know what happened”,” the Argentinian-born says. “I don’t give a s---. There was something political.

“Of course, I had an Italian passport [when I moved to and played for Italy]. Spain were angry and my interview was turned into a big story.

“I was a fat b------ with long hair. I wasn’t Ange Capuozzo. Even the Italian Rugby Union is not mafia enough to do something like that.

“I never said that my parents were Italian. I said my great-grandfather was. When the media called me last year to say I wasn’t Italian, I laughed. I said, yeah, the Mona Lisa isn’t French. Same thing.

“There was no investigation [not in 2001 when he arrived in Italy nor last year]. Because I came with all my papers and my passport. I went to Calvisano Town Hall. I handed over my papers, which were sent to the embassy. They looked at everything, asked for something called Jure Sanguinis [the ability for those from the Italian diaspora to be recognised as Italian citizens regardless of place of birth, as long as certain basic lineage requirements are met]. It was a legal thing with [former Argentina president Juan] Perón where he made Italian immigrants surrender their passports.

“If you say I’m not Italian, Diego Domínguez isn’t. Every Argentinian-Italian would be the same – and it’s not true.”

I ask if Daniela is 100 per cent Italian. “Yes,” she replies with a cheeky smirk.

Castrogiovanni cannot help himself: “Yeah, not fake like me!”

‘Who would say no to a night in Vegas with Zlatan?’

We arrive at the leafy restaurant, Osteria der Belli, on Piazza di Sant’Apollonia. Before we even have time to take our seats on the terrace, a bottle of dry Franciacorta is plunged into an ice bucket on the table, and as I sit down, platters of scampi (the mini-lobster kind, not the deep-fried kind), sea bass and tuna carpaccio, clams and pecorino-stuffed culurgiones are planted onto the table. I don’t even bother asking whether Castrogiovanni and Daniela are regulars – and I certainly don’t bother asking for a menu.

I do jokingly ask, however, whether they called ahead to pre-order. They laugh.

“When I lived in England, I remember it was a player’s wife’s birthday, and they asked me three months before what I wanted to eat!” Castrogiovanni exclaims.

“Mamma mia!” cries Daniela.

“I didn’t have any f---ing idea – it was in three months’ time. Very English,” concludes Castrogiovanni.

It seems the right time to ask the burning question: what actually happened with that 2016 knees-up in Las Vegas with Zlatan that ended his rugby career? The prop, not selected for Racing 92’s European semi-final against his former club, Leicester, travelled to Sin City to celebrate Paris Saint-Germain’s league cup victory. The problem was that he had told Racing that he was visiting his grandmother in Argentina. Pictures, predictably, emerged; Castrogiovanni, predictably, was sacked.

“I remember it,” Castrogiovanni says. “It wasn’t too bad. The way I did that was very bad. But, what do you say in England? It is what it is; what’s done is done. Sometimes, when you make a mistake, people invent things.

“I was free to go anywhere I wanted. But it was a mistake. The annoying thing now is that everyone remembers me for that and not what I achieved before.

“Every time I talk about it, the next headline is about me and Zlatan. We hate that.

“It’s gone. I did it. It was fun, f--- yeah. I also don’t think there are many people who would say no to the offer of a night out in Vegas with Zlatan.

“My mistake was not telling the truth. I missed the semi-final of the Heineken Cup but I wasn’t playing. If I’d said I was going to Vegas there wouldn’t have been a problem. I stupidly said I was going to Argentina to visit my grandmother and then those pictures came out. French moaning b-------. They weren’t happy with me. That’s the truth. And they were looking for a way to sack me.

“The painful part for me was that I wasn’t allowed to say sorry and goodbye to the team. I knew I’d pay for what I did, but I wanted to say goodbye. That was how I retired from the game. I never played again. Racing 92 sacked me. I didn’t care that much about not playing anymore. I had had enough of it.”

He is warming to his theme: “I wouldn’t like to be a coach, though. I couldn’t do it with all the politics. How do you say in English, talk the talk but not walk the walk? I had a lot of coaches who talked the talk and then I had a lot who walked the walk.

“And I get sacked for going to Vegas? F--- you. I am the bad boy because I… went to Vegas.

“This is why rugby’s not evolving. It’s the same f------ all the time. That’s why I left. F------ boring. The same faces every day, everywhere. I wanted a new challenge for my life.”

‘I wasn’t an easy guy to manage’

Sitting opposite, I spot a tattoo on Castrogiovanni’s arm. It says “Rocco”. An extra seat appears at the table. It is Daniela’s 19-year-old son, who is joining us for dinner before meeting his friends. His name? Rocco, of course. Castrogiovanni might not have children of his own (yet) but he sees himself as a father. Once Rocco is seated and greeted, the conversation turns to Castrogiovanni’s time in the East Midlands.

“I cried a lot when I left Leicester,” he says. “A sad and emotional day. I didn’t want to leave. No one would recognise me now at Welford Road I don’t think.”

The opposite is true. He and Daniela have never visited Leicester. Castrogiovanni has not been back since 2014, that December night when the Italian – by then a Toulon prop – stormed into the press conference to call Cockerill, Leicester’s head coach, a “c---“ after a Tigers victory at Welford Road. Cockerill had not renewed Castrogiovanni’s contract a season prior.

“That cost me a lot of money,” Castrogiovanni says. “I might have been one of the first to pay money for a fine. Like £15k. That hearing annoyed me. When you turn up at these disciplinary hearings, the people who want to fine you are the same people who used to play and punch people – now they’re teaching me and telling me I’m a bad guy? I had to pay my lawyer and, if I lost, all the bills for those f------. I said: ‘I made a mistake, but I don’t want to give my money to you. Put in the paper that I’ll give the fine to charity.’”

Cockerill has since said that one day the two will share a beer and laugh. Does Castro concur?

“That hasn’t happened yet,” he smiles. “But why not? We are old now. We have kids. We all grow. You can’t live in the past. You need to live in the present. If you live in the past you never go forward. Having a beer with him would be the perfect way to finish the thing.

“I wasn’t an easy guy to manage - because I didn’t listen! I liked to be the rebel. That was my problem. I liked talking to the referee. I was a young guy trying to play and win – that’s it. And if that meant talking to the ref or looking like a c---, then that’s it.

“When I said that word, everyone took it really bad. But when you’re foreign, you don’t realise the manners of the words you say. I learned a lesson.

“In Argentinian Spanish, there’s little weight given to these words. It’s about the way they say it. ‘Son of a b----‘ to us is like nothing. Whereas in England it’s bad.

“I realised at that point I’d made a mistake – but I was just repeating things said in the changing room! It was funny, anyway.”

‘I never ate breakfast, even as a rugby player’

The pasta course arrives but Castrogiovanni does not touch it, explaining that he is wheat intolerant. An Italian who cannot eat pasta? It turns out that Castrogiovanni’s rebellious streak even extends to his stomach.

With the ice bucket topped up more times than I care to remember, it becomes clear that food and family – as with all Italians – are two tenets of Castrogiovanni and Daniela’s life. The couple actually met on a business video call with several diallers, got chatting and, before they knew it, were getting married in Rome during the Covid lockdown. Forty guests only, but they still had time for a two-day party. In lieu of a wedding cake, there was a whole hog.

Speaking of which, our main course, a whole salt-baked sea bass, arrives to much fanfare. Castrogiovanni seizes the head – “the best part,” says Daniela – before I ask the former prop, who is slighter than his playing days, about his relationship with food.

“I don’t eat during the day,” he says. “I do all the opposite things that you should. I don’t eat in the morning, I have never eaten breakfast, even when I was a rugby player. Nothing before midday except coffee. Sometimes I had to change my schedules around that.

“I love to grill and I love to be at the barbecue, but I don’t like to work! When we do a BBQ, we do it for 30 people, and I always cook. But I don’t want to work at it. For me, it’s a passion. To be at the grill, for you to come to my house and for me to serve you, that’s something I like to do. I don’t want that to become a job.

“When you make what you love your work, you ruin it.” The couple look at me, the rugby reporter, and laugh in unison.

‘I smoked a packet a day when I played’

A French family lean over from the table next door and ask for a light. To my surprise – this being continental Europe – none of us is able to oblige.

“I smoked a packet a day when I played,” Castrogiovanni says unprompted. “From 25. But I used to smoke a lot. Then when I stopped playing I smoked more, then it was three packets a day. I’m a responsible guy now.”

A semifreddo brings the meal to a close – Castrogiovanni has two, of course – along with a digestivo, Mirto di Sardegna, a chilled, Limoncello-style liqueur made from of a relation of blueberries, instead of lemons.

Incredibly, Castrogiovanni pays, much to my embarrassment. “You are in Rome,” he says. “The world of rugby and Italian culture has taught me to be hospitable.”

I depart, duped (and a little tipsy). I had expected evidence of Castrogiovanni’s rebellious, cantankerous nature but instead discovered that his last decade had been spent settling down, building a family. I found the real Castrogiovanni, but the once burly prop has been replaced by a caring husband and thoughtful father; although he still need never buy a drink in Rome.

It turns out that I had no idea what was coming.