The Roman Report

There are moments in football when the noise clears and something genuine shines through, and this past week at Roma was full of them. After a season that twisted and turned and tested the patience of every last Giallorossi supporter, AS Roma have secured their place in the Champions League, and let nobody tell you that wasn't earned through something real. Yes, Paolo Di Canio, bless him, has been raising his eyebrows and questioning whether Roma quite deserved their most recent results — and look, Di Canio has never been a man to keep an opinion to himself. But there is a certain irony in finding Alexis Saelemaekers, a man who spent half the season here before returning to his parent club, celebrating against Paulo Dybala while his AC Milan side sit below Roma in the table and watch the Champions League from the outside looking in. Roma are in. Milan are not. Sometimes that really is all the answer you need.

What gives me real joy this week, though, is not the qualification itself but the voices coming out of Trigoria. Wesley, the young Brazilian midfielder who arrived and immediately looked as though he had been born in the Giallorossi shirt, spoke this week with a warmth and an openness that made me feel genuinely optimistic about the fabric of this squad. Talking on Radio Manà Sport before heading off to join Brazil's World Cup squad under Carlo Ancelotti, he said something that stopped me in my tracks: "Straight away, I'm in love with this place." From a player who had just completed his first season in Serie A, who scored on his debut against Bologna, who described his own quick integration as a surprise even to himself — that is not a publicity line. That is someone who has found something they did not expect to find quite so fast. His reflection on the final weeks of the season was equally striking. "We were always aware of our strength," he said, and you could feel the collective belief he was describing. That kind of mentality does not come from nowhere. It comes from a changing room, from a coach, from a culture being deliberately built.

Which brings us neatly to Gian Piero Gasperini, the architect behind so much of this renewed confidence at the club. El Aynaoui spoke this week about his relationship with the manager, calling it excellent, expressing clear satisfaction with his place in the project and genuine excitement about what lies ahead in European competition. When a player talks about his coach with that sort of warmth after a long and demanding season — not in the honeymoon months of September but here, now, at the end of May — it tells you that the connection is real. Gasperini has not simply organised Roma tactically. He has, it seems, managed to make people want to be here, want to fight for this shirt, want to belong to this particular thing he is building.

And it is that word — building — that feels like the most important one as we look toward the Friedkin Group and what comes next. Qualification for the Champions League is a genuine achievement, a significant step, but Tom Friedkin and his family know better than anyone that it is only the beginning of what this club needs. The work ahead this summer, in the transfer market and in the infrastructure of the squad, will define whether this season becomes a foundation or simply a high-water mark. Roma have had those before. Moments of brightness followed by drift. This time, with Gasperini's identity taking hold and players like Wesley and El Aynaoui speaking with such conviction about the project, the conditions feel different — more purposeful, more rooted.

For now, though, allow yourself the pleasure of it. Champions League football at the Olimpico next season. Roma back among Europe's elite. Supporters who have waited through some dark and difficult stretches finally getting to see their club where it belongs. Wesley heads off to the World Cup carrying this club in his heart; the rest of us carry the anticipation of what comes next. The summer transfer window opens, the draw awaits, and Roma's European adventure is about to begin again.