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"Sometimes, I do feel underrated, yes," he admitted to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera after finishing in seventh position in the 2024 Ballon d'Or award.

David Yazbek, who conceived the idea of turning this stranger-than-fiction tale into a musical, wrote the score with Erik Della Penna.

Authorities said 140,000 people had lined the streets, clapping and waving as the hearse - a repurposed white popemobile - crossed the Tiber river and drove past some of Rome's most recognisable sights: the Colosseum, the Forum and the Altare della Patria national monument on Piazza Venezia.

Authorities said 140,000 had lined the streets, clapping and waving as the hearse – a repurposed white popemobile – crossed the Tiber river and drove past some of Rome's most recognisable sights: the Colosseum, the Forum and the Altare della Patria national monument on Piazza Venezia.

Nearby, people slowly ambled down Via della Conciliazione – the pedestrian street that connects Italy and the Vatican city state, and the same one the Pope's coffin will travel down on Saturday as he reaches his final place of rest in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.