The Roman Report

There are weeks when this football club reminds you exactly why you gave your heart to it, and this has been one of them. Saturday's 2-0 win over Genoa was not merely three points — it was a statement about what Gian Piero Gasperini is building at Trigoria, delivered by a starting eleven with an average age of 24 and a half, five players born in 2004 or later, and a bench that included men who would walk into most Serie A sides. Santiago Castro unlocked a stubborn match with a finish of breathtaking composure, shielding the ball in a tangle of four defenders before producing the most delicate of chips over Bijlow — a move that Paolo Di Canio, hardly a man who hands out compliments cheaply, called the work of a superior player rather than a lucky one. Then came Emanuele Lulli, a 19-year-old from Palestrina who was earning less than two thousand euros a month and who, after running thirty metres to reach the corner that set up the chance, buried the second goal and ran to the Curva with the look of a boy who suddenly understood that every sacrifice his family had made was worth it. Two goals, two young Giallorossi, and a Roma side that is increasingly impossible to ignore.

Lulli's story deserves a column of its own, and one day it will get one. A boy released by the academy, rescued by Tor Tre Teste, recommended back to Trigoria by scout Marco Albergati, converted from central midfielder to wide player by former Primavera coach Gianluca Falsini, nearly loaned to Avellino in mid-July before a chain of events — Rensch's transfer collapsing, Molina arriving, an assist for Dybala in Cardiff — conspired to keep him in Rome. Gasperini saw something and trusted it, and now the club is scrambling to tie him down until 2031 before anyone else notices. The comparison with Riccardo Calafiori — Roma's cautionary tale of the academy talent who slipped through the fingers — hangs visibly over the negotiations. This time, Trigoria intends to act. And rightly so: when Lulli starts, Roma win. That is not a coincidence; that is a lucky charm built on hard work.

The joy of all this, though, sits alongside genuine concern, because the injury list at the moment is long enough to keep any Roma supporter up at night. Paulo Dybala is the most significant absence. Gasperini confirmed a small tear — "una piccola lesione" — and two more weeks on the sidelines, after admitting the recovery had taken longer than hoped. He will miss the Slovan Bratislava game, the clash with Napoli, Cagliari, Udinese, and potentially beyond. The rough outline has him back perhaps for the bench against Manchester United or Sassuolo, but the most realistic scenario points to the international break before the Joya is truly back in business. Add to that the absences of Mile Svilar and Manu Koné, and the midfield picture is particularly stark: with Cristante working separately at Trigoria and wearing a bandage on his knee — even if his "ci siamo" suggested he is closer than feared — Gasperini was left with essentially Niccolò Pisilli and a 35-year-old Marten de Roon as his recognised central midfielders against Genoa, plus the Primavera call-up Alessandro Di Nunzio making his Serie A debut off the bench. Piero Torri on Radio Manà Manà was not wrong to raise the question of how De Roon copes with four matches in ten days at his age, though the hope is that Cristante's return before the Napoli fixture eases the burden considerably.

Gasperini's response to all of this has been characteristic. He has not complained, not made excuses, and not compromised his identity. Instead he has turned to Mario Hermoso — the most-used player of the season, already ten minutes ahead of even Dybala in terms of minutes played — and is reportedly considering deploying the Spaniard in midfield when necessary. It is not as outlandish as it sounds: Hermoso tried the role in a pre-season friendly against Newport and said himself that in the end he found his feet. With Gasperini's absolute trust behind him, and with the tactical intelligence the coach instils, Hermoso in a hybrid role could buy the squad vital flexibility. Meanwhile Lorenzo Pellegrini, speaking at the press conference on the eve of the Slovan match with the quiet calm of a man who has been to the edge and come back, described a summer spent not agonising over contract talks but simply trying to move freely again, staying in touch with Gasperini the whole time. The one-year renewal was the club's choice, he said, and he accepted it — but you could hear in his words the determination of someone who knows that acceptance is just the starting point. When Pellegrini and Gasperini talked over the summer, they immediately found their path together. That means something.

Away from the injury news and the immediate fixture pressure, this week delivered something genuinely gratifying. Donyell Malen and Mile Svilar were honoured at the Manlio Scopigno and Felice Pulici awards, the best player and the best goalkeeper of last season's Serie A respectively. For Malen in particular, the recognition feels earned and then some: alongside Castro in the current campaign, he has already contributed nine goals in all competitions, and together the two of them have already surpassed the combined Serie A tally that Artem Dovbyk and Evan Ferguson managed across the entirety of 2025-26. The attack Gasperini has built — with Malen as the first choice and Castro growing into the role that Vincenzo Montella once filled behind Gabriel Batistuta in Roma's greatest season — is the defining difference between this Roma and last year's. Fabio Bazzani on DAZN put it plainly: this club is objectively the team closest to Inter, with more alternatives, more style and more spirit. That is not a partisan view. That is just what the table and the performances are telling us.

Tuesday's Champions League game against Slovan Bratislava arrives, then, with Roma stretched thin but not broken, with young players stepping up and veterans digging deep, and with a squad that has already shown it can win ugly, win young and win without its biggest names. The ghost of 2011 has been raised this week — former Slovan defender Marian Had recalled with undisguised glee how his team sent Roma out of the Europa League in qualifying fifteen years ago, how Totti was furious when substituted, how Luis Enrique, unintentionally, helped them through. It is a reminder that this fixture carries history, that Slovak football has its own pride, and that complacency would be a gift Roma can ill afford to give. Whether Gasperini pairs Malen and Castro from the first minute, or how he solves the midfield puzzle, or whether Pellegrini steps into the trequartista role — these are the questions this week has left hanging. The answers come at the Olimpico, and after everything we have seen in recent days, I find myself, despite everything, watching with something very close to belief.