Roma and Lazio have both made unbeaten starts to the Serie A season, giving those in the Italian capital dreams of a Scudetto
After nine games in 28 days, Gian Piero Gasperini finally got a moment to pause and reflect on Sunday night. The Roma manager was back in Liguria, where he worked for the best part of a decade across two stints at Genoa, to collect an award from Stelle Nello Sport – an association formed to promote sport in the region – celebrating his career achievements and commitment to courageous attacking football.
The timing worked out well. Gasperini’s Roma thumped Sassuolo 3-0 on Saturday, bouncing back from a midweek loss to Manchester United. That result meant the Giallorossi had scored 31 times in 11 Serie A games. In the last 65 years only two Italian teams – the Juventus and Napoli sides of 2017-18 – had ever made a more prolific start to a top-flight campaign. More importantly, Roma’s victory meant they remained undefeated in domestic competition this season. Just like their neighbours Lazio, who drew 1-1 away to Napoli in Sunday’s early kick-off.
Roma Caput Mundi? The old Latin phrase positions Rome as the capital of the world. Probably a little bit of a stretch, given Roma’s result against United. Lazio are not even competing in European competition this season and their own manager, Gennaro Gattuso, keeps claiming his priority is to avoid relegation.
Still, this is an extraordinary moment for football in the capital. According to Opta, this is the first time two teams from the same city have ever made it through 11 games of a Serie A season without a single defeat. When you consider that Rome’s two leading clubs have won just five Scudetti between them – as compared to 40 combined for Internazionale and Milan – the statistic jumps out even more.
Acknowledging this detail in an interview after collecting his award, Gasperini could not help but draw a contrast between his team and their rivals. “It’s a bit of a surprise for everyone to have this Scudetto derby situation playing out in November,” he said. “But it’s a reflection of the values of the city. “Rome is an extraordinary city which has a huge enthusiasm for football. For Roma the stadium is always full. Lazio might have some other problems. But the passion for football in Rome is incredible.”
His reference was to the mass boycott of Lazio’s home games by supporters, the reasons for which have been covered in recent editions of this column. Attendance figures for the Biancocelesti’s home games at the Stadio Olimpico this season hover at about 10,000 people. Roma drew 64,674 for Sassuolo on Saturday – in line with their average. Ticket sales do not decide football games. Lazio sit top of the table heading into the international break. But Roma have plenty to feel good about too.
Sassuolo were about the best team they could have faced this weekend. Seeking a bounce-back after their collapse in Manchester, Roma lined up against opponents who had earned a single point from their previous six games and owned the leakiest defence in the division.
Leonardo Balerdi had a header cleared off the line before Mario Hermoso put Roma ahead in the 27th minute, punishing some indecisive defending. Moments later, a scuffed shot from Donyell Malen – bobbling far off target – took deviations off a pair of Sassuolo players and wound up in the back of the net. The only question left was how many goals Roma would add. In the end it was just one, Rodrigo Mora cutting in from the left and swapping passes with Malen before striking back across his body into the bottom corner from the right side of the box.
A third consecutive Serie A game with a goal for the 19-year-old, who also set up Matías Soulé’s opener against United. And the Portuguese even played the initial ball to create the chance that led to their penalty in that game as well.
Gasperini has never been shy in his enthusiasm for Mora. “We’re standing before an extraordinary talent,” said the manager after including the teenager in his starting XI for a season-opening 4-0 win over Fiorentina in August. “Every time he touches the ball something beautiful happens.”
is not alone in noticing. Mora was called up by Portugal this week for their Nations League games against Denmark and Wales. He has trained with the senior team before but not played for them. There will be greater opportunities to do so now Cristiano Ronaldo has retired from international football, though Mora expressed regret, too, at not getting to train again with a man he described as “my idol”.
Back at Roma, Gasperini has tried not to ask too much, too soon, of Mora, giving him a full 90 minutes only once, in a Champions League rout of Slovan Bratislava. Otherwise, he has alternated starts with opportunities from the bench during this busy early-season stretch.
Only in the last week did that change. Mora started against Udinese, scoring the second goal in a 5-2 win, then was back in the lineup to face United. Gasperini’s decision to take him off at half-time of that game has been widely criticised. These things are always easy to oversimplify, but it is true that Roma’s attacking threat seemed to vanish with Mora missing after the interval.
Venezia 2-1 Udinese, Torino 1-1 Lecce, Cagliari 1-0 Frosinone, Parma 1-2 Bologna, Roma 3-0 Sassuolo, Napoli 1-1 Lazio, Monza 0-1 Atalanta, Genoa 1-2 Milan, Inter 2-0 Como, Fiorentina 2-2 Juventus
Gasperini spoke at the end of that defeat of it being a lesson that Roma could learn from. His team is still a work in progress, but the trend lines are more than encouraging. Roma secured their Champions League spot by winning six of their final seven games last season. They have not lost a domestic home game for more than 11 months and even their most recent away defeat in Serie A, to Inter, was all the way back in April.
Mora’s rapid ascent has added a new wrinkle. The attack we have seen in Roma’s last three games, with him and Soulé playing either side of Malen in a 3-4-2-1 has carved opponents open with such devastating effectiveness that you could start to wonder whether a healthy Paulo Dybala – for so long the standout talent here – would displace any of them from a first-choice XI.
This is not really a debate anyone needs to have. Roma hope to get Dybala back from his calf injury after the international round, but his body has always imposed breaks for him in every season and the Giallorossi will need rotation in any case to keep everyone fresh through a long campaign.
The improved depth of Roma’s squad, on the other hand, is a reason to believe that they can sustain their strong start. Gasperini, like most managers, would prefer to talk about the next game than discuss title ambitions this early in a campaign, but when a reporter asked if he would sign up now for a guaranteed second place he dismissed the idea out of hand.
“We don’t need to give ourselves false illusions, but we’re not going to knock ourselves down for no reason either,” he said. “I don’t know what we can achieve.”
