The Roman Report

There are moments in a Roman autumn when you sense something has genuinely shifted — not just form, not just results, but the very character of a football club. Eight consecutive Serie A victories spanning two seasons, ten goals in three matches for the first time since 1960, sixty-eight shots in three league games, and a comeback against Atalanta that had Lele Adani reaching for poetry on national television. Gian Piero Gasperini's Roma are not merely winning. They are playing with a ferocity and a collective belief that this city has not felt in a very long time, and the rest of Italian football is beginning to take notice. When Fabio Capello — a man who won a Scudetto in this city, a man who does not flatter easily — tells La Gazzetta dello Sport that Roma are Inter's most serious threat and draws parallels to the side that delivered the 2001 title, you do not dismiss it as sentiment. You sit up and listen.

The victory over Atalanta on Saturday was the defining exhibit. Roma dominated a first half so thoroughly that Gianluca Piacentini on Rete Sport could barely recall its equal in recent years, yet somehow found themselves level after Atalanta scored on their first shot on target. A lesser side — a Roma side of recent vintage — would have retreated into anxiety. Instead, in thirty-five-degree September heat, they attacked with a kind of demented courage, producing thirty-nine shots across the ninety minutes and four attempts in the final three minutes alone, once every forty seconds, until Matías Soulé settled it. Mario Hermoso's equaliser in the eighty-ninth minute, Soulé's winner three minutes later: it was, as Adani said, not quite a football match but an act of faith. What makes it doubly significant is that the goals came from substitutes, from players Gasperini had summoned from the bench — Leonardo Balerdi rebalancing the defensive structure, Nahuel Molina bringing an overwhelming physical force down the flank, Santiago Castro twice striking the woodwork with the impudence of someone who has not yet learned to be afraid. Gasperini said before the match that starters and substitutes no longer matter, that you play with sixteen players. Against Atalanta, he proved it.

Donyell Malen's importance to all of this cannot be overstated, even in a week when he had a difficult afternoon by his own exacting standards. Five goals in three matches, a contribution to fifty percent of Roma's total tally, nineteen goals in twenty-one matches in Giallorossi colours — the numbers are extraordinary for a player who arrived to solve a crisis and ended up reshaping a club's trajectory. Since Malen joined in January, Roma's goals-per-match rate has nearly doubled from 1.33 to 2.11 across all competitions. Against Atalanta, Gasperini took him off because he was running on fumes and instinct rather than precision, which is exactly the kind of honest management that a truly deep squad permits. When Malen does not score, Paulo Dybala produces four assists in three matches. When Dybala draws opponents, Soulé decides things. When Soulé comes on as a substitute, he wins you a game at the Olimpico in the final minutes. This is what Capello means when he talks about four or five quality players in the penalty area who know how to speak to one another in tight spaces.

The shadow of Thursday hangs over all of this in the most wonderful way. Roma's Champions League debut against Fenerbahçe in Istanbul — the first European campaign of this kind for the club in seven years — is the week's great question mark, and it is a magnificent one to carry. Gasperini will assess the fitness of Wesley and Evan N'Dicka, and will monitor Dybala, who played ninety-six minutes on Saturday and whose energy levels matter enormously to everything Roma do going forward. The radio panels have been unanimous on one point: Dybala will want to be on that pitch in Istanbul. Lorenzo Pes on Teleradiostereo put it simply — Gasperini's challenge now is convincing Dybala he can score goals again, because the assist instinct is thriving but the striker in him wants feeding. Molina, fresh from a thirty-six-minute masterclass against Atalanta and carrying the experience of World Cup finals football with Argentina, is pushing hard for a starting berth alongside Emanuele Lulli, who has been quietly excellent in all three opening fixtures. The depth, again, is the point. There is not one answer to any selection question, and that is a genuinely new feeling for Roma supporters.

Off the pitch, the week has not been without its turbulence. The confrontation between Atalanta chief executive Luca Percassi and Roma sporting director Tony D'Amico in the Olimpico tunnel has escalated into a full federal inquiry, with Giuseppe Chiné's office beginning to hear witnesses and preparing to take statements from both men. The tension between Percassi and D'Amico — who made the move from Bergamo to Rome — was already a charged backstory before Saturday's match; whatever occurred in that tunnel area and car park around the Monte Mario stand has now become a matter of sporting justice. Roma have been unequivocal in backing D'Amico, describing Percassi's conduct as verbal aggression. Atalanta have offered an equally firm denial. The federation will determine who is telling the truth. Meanwhile, Roma supporters face a separate anxiety over the Torino away fixture on the fourteenth, with ticket sales to fans resident in Lazio suspended pending a decision from the CASMS on public order grounds. It mirrors a situation that dragged through most of last season, and nobody at Roma wants another prolonged away travel ban clouding what should be a season of celebration.

And yet celebration is what the evidence demands. Capello reached for Batistuta when drawing his parallels to 2001, and Gasperini has already quietly indicated in the January window conversation that the squad needs topping up rather than rebuilding — Jayden Oosterwolde's situation bears monitoring should his recovery progress, and the possibility of Jadon Sancho arriving on a pay-per-appearance basis is an intriguing low-risk option for the attacking width Gasperini has requested. Daniele Ghilardi is attracting Roberto Mancini's attention for the national team. Rodrigo Mora has Roberto Pruzzo worried and Fabio Capello excited in equal measure, which is probably the right place for a young player to be. The questions that Thursday in Istanbul will answer — whether Roma's pressing and intensity translate to European football against a Fenerbahçe side missing Guendouzi through suspension and assessing Asensio's fitness — are the questions that matter most right now, and they are questions worth asking of a team that is playing the most compelling football this city has seen in years.