Roma put the disappointing Champions League evening behind them with a classic 2-0 win over Genoa at the Stadio Olimpico, a result that closed a four-day stretch of returns for former players and coaches, including Mourinho, Rüdiger, De Rossi and El Shaarawy. Gollini kept his second league clean sheet in as many matches, and the side made seven changes from the starting eleven used in the cup.
Gasperini retained his 3-4-2-1 system, with forced choices up front and in midfield, and Pellegrini was the first substitute used in both areas. Daniele De Rossi returned to the Olimpico after Genoa's first league win of the season, determined to build on it while remembering his last visit to the ground a year earlier, which ended early with a defeat. The Genoa coach set up a mirror-image 3-4-2-1, closing passing lanes towards Pisilli and De Roon, narrowing the centre and accepting that Roma would play the ball out wide, where duels and defensive shifts along the flanks would decide the game. De Roon quickly dropped between the centre-backs, with Balerdi and Koulierakis providing width and Lulli and Rensch pushing high, while Pisilli and Diafé marked each other closely.
Roma started sluggishly, still feeling the effects of the Madrid match, and struggled to raise the tempo or the quality of their passing. The duel between Castro and Østigård was decided early on the pitch, with the Argentine needing to win his physical battles. Castro was expected to stretch play before linking it up, but he chose to knit the play together immediately, stopping the team from going vertically, something Soulé and Mora, who are not especially quick, could not do. The two midfielders' passing was slow and imprecise, and the wing-backs offered little in creating support. Roma found it hard to enter the final 30 metres cleanly, and in the first half, a mix of misplaced passes and too many backward passes left the game stuck in midfield. Set pieces became important in the deadlock: Balerdi hit the woodwork from one, and El Shaarawy also struck the crossbar shortly after. The first half passed without ideas, with little enterprise and a few isolated attempts, and the lack of a decisive touch was clear.
Gasperini and De Rossi started the second half with the same 22 players. Roma remained imprecise, Pisilli in particular: although he covered the most ground, his tireless pursuit of the mobile Diafé risked draining his energy and costing him sharpness. Genoa were defensively organised but struggled to threaten with their three forwards, who were always predictable in their positions, which meant Roma's three centre-backs never had to switch markers. Breaking the deadlock took individual quality. Castro and then Soulé provided the spark, while Lulli's determination helped as well: he won the corner from which the first goal came and later scored the second. Both goals arrived at the right moments, early in the second half and midway through it, just as Genoa were pushing forward to chase the game.
The final lineups featured Pellegrini, Hermoso, Wesley and Ghilardi coming on for Mora, Koulierakis, Lulli and Rensch, while Genoa introduced Vitinha, Robinho Junior and Amorim for El Shaarawy, Frendrup and Messias. Late on, Gasperini gave a run-out to the young Di Nunzio, who replaced Pisilli and took up a position in midfield alongside De Roon. De Roon has now played 270 consecutive minutes in seven days, and will add another 90 minutes before Roma's home Champions League fixture against Slovan Bratislava, which takes place in 72 hours.
