Roma’s Winning Formula
Last night, AS Roma recorded their 10th straight win and continued their perfect start against Chievo Verona. Breaking the record for the best start to a Serie A season in the process. The question is, how did they manage it? The strength of the Italian league has come under scrutiny in the past couple of seasons as their European representatives have failed to make much of an impact in the Champions League. It does however, still possess some of the strongest and best known teams in Europe in Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Napoli. Yet this year Roma have burst out the gates and are showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. In my mind the most surprising thing is that they are only 5 points clear at the top of the table. They do however find themselves 11 points clear of 4th placed Inter Milan and a whopping 18 points clear of AC Milan after only 10 games.
Has their squad of household names been the key for them? Quite simply no, since they barely possess any players that we would refer to as “household names”. Francesco Totti seems to have been at the club since the mid 70’s and even at the age of 37 he is still smashing them in for Roma. Summer signing Gervinho who was what can only be described as a flop at Arsenal has revitalised his career and has 3 goals this season already. Do they have a potent striker leading the way in the scoring charts? Nope, in fact their top scorers this term are Francesco Totti and Alessandro Florenzi with just 4 each. Compare this to Serie A’s top scorer Fiorentina’s Giuseppe Rossi, the former Manchester United youngster has 9 already this campaign.
I believe the success Roma have had this season lies firstly with the brilliant managerial work of Rudi Garcia, who has taken them from a 6th place finish last season, to a 100% record after 10 games this season. Roma have goals from all areas of the pitch, 11 of the 16 players that have started a game for i Giallorossi this season have found the back of the net, and 6 of those have scored more than once. Now it’s great to have plenty of goals in the team but what really sets Roma apart this year is their ability to defend. They have conceded just 1 goal in their first 10 games of the season, a truly incredible statistic when you consider they have played Napoli, Lazio, Inter Milan and Udinese in that 10 game spell. Defenders Mehdi Benatia and Leandro Castan have started every game and been at the heart of the miserly defence all season. Not to mention goalkeeper Morgan De Sanctis, who already has 9 clean sheets to his name this season and if Roma carry on playing like this he could almost certainly be in the running to beat the league’s clean sheet record. What’s more important for Roma, is winning the title for the first time since 2000-01, and returning the club to the top of Serie A. Whether they can keep this up, is a totally different question, but for me the longer they can keep this run going, the better chance they have of winning the league.
Photo by TheArcticBlues
About the Author
SYC Matt A football fan just like the rest of us. Battling with the usual ups and downs that come with supporting one of the less glamorous teams. Crusader for footballing justice.
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