The Roman Report — 22 June 2026 – 28 June 2026

There are weeks in football where everything feels like it is moving at once, where the air around a club crackles with possibility and consequence in equal measure, and this has been precisely one of those weeks for AS Roma. At the centre of it all, quietly and yet enormously, is the story that refuses to be rushed but refuses to die: Francesco Totti is coming home. Not to cut a ribbon or wave from a balcony, but to genuinely come home, in the truest sense of the phrase. Negotiations are expected to intensify in July, with the Friedkin Group committed to finding a substantive role for the man who gave this club everything, and crucially, Gian Piero Gasperini is not merely tolerant of the idea — he is actively pushing for it. When a coach of Gasperini's experience and ego says "I have an idea of what to do with someone like him," you sit up and listen. He sees what so many of us have felt instinctively: that since Claudio Ranieri walked out of Trigoria for the last time, something human and connective has been missing from the soul of the place. Totti is not interested in a ceremonial title, and God bless him for that. He wants to be in the building, in the meetings, in the texture of daily life at the club. As Roma approaches its centenary, the prospect of Totti being genuinely woven back into its fabric is not just sentimental — it is structurally sound. The obstacles are real, chiefly the specifics of role and compensation, but the direction of travel is clear, and July cannot come quickly enough.

While Totti's return builds in the background, the present work is happening fast and with urgency. Gian Piero Gasperini and new sporting director Tony D'Amico arrived at Trigoria together this week for their first official summit, and the symbolism of that shared entrance is worth noting. These two men built something extraordinary together at Atalanta — a Europa League title, three consecutive Champions League campaigns, a culture of structured ambition — and now they have brought that shared DNA to Rome. Their agenda was dense: renewals, sales, incoming targets, and a call with Ryan Friedkin. This is what a proper sporting operation looks like, a coach and a director aligned, moving together, speaking the same language. Roma has not always had this, and its absence has cost the club dearly in recent years. That D'Amico was already circling Mason Greenwood's name as a priority target tells you something about how quickly this partnership is moving. Gasperini wants Greenwood badly — that much has been obvious for weeks — and the club is now working through a structured payment proposal to make the deal happen within their financial constraints. When your head coach is this explicit about a transfer priority, and your sporting director is on the same page before the ink on his contract is even dry, you have the conditions for a genuinely exciting summer.

On the renewal front, the noise is resolving into something clearer. Piero Torri's assertion on Roman radio this week — that the contracts of Paulo Dybala and Zeki Celik are effectively done and could be announced within days — landed with the satisfying thud of good news long anticipated. Dybala staying is not a small thing. It is a statement about what this project is trying to be. And while Celik is a less glamorous name, consistent, dependable full-backs are the unglamorous architecture of competitive squads. Lorenzo Pellegrini was also spotted at Trigoria this week amid talk of his own renewal discussions, and there is something fitting and slightly moving about a Roma-born captain negotiating his future in the same corridors where the club's greatest-ever player may soon be walking again. The June 30 financial deadline hanging over all of this adds a tension that management will need to navigate carefully, and the question of whether the Settlement Agreement gets extended by a year remains, in Torri's own words, an open issue the ownership is desperate to close before the end of the month.

The question of what Roma sell is where the anxiety lives this week, and it is legitimate anxiety. Manu Koné has been linked to Arsenal and Chelsea, and while Nando Orsi's scepticism about those specific clubs is reasonable, the broader point stands — if a truly serious offer arrives, Roma may have to accept it. Should Koné go, Gasperini has already been doing his homework, with Lamine Camara of Monaco emerging as the leading replacement candidate. The 22-year-old Senegalese midfielder is currently lighting up the World Cup and is reportedly a long-standing Gasperini target, which matters enormously — this is not a panic buy conjured in a crisis, but a considered choice. At forty to forty-five million euros, Monaco will not make it easy, but the profile is right. Matías Soulé remains the primary sale candidate to generate the necessary funds, and Roberto Pruzzo's wider comments about protecting Svilar at all costs, and Nando Orsi's pointed reminder that the goalkeeper is worth seven or eight points a season, reflect a growing consensus around the club that some assets are simply non-negotiable. Svilar is one of them. That conversation needs to stay settled.

There is one small subplot worth acknowledging with warmth rather than alarm. Donyell Malen has had a difficult run of form for the Netherlands, but Tijjani Reijnders stepping forward to publicly back him in the pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport is a reminder that the belief in Malen at international level has not evaporated. Roma will need him firing next season, particularly if the attacking reconstruction around Greenwood and Dybala is to have the depth it requires. A player who carries the confidence of his peers is a player worth persisting with.

Roma's summer is taking shape, and it is taking shape with a coherence and intent that this club has been badly missing. The Gasperini-D'Amico axis is functioning, the renewals are arriving, the targets are identified, and somewhere in the distance, Totti is packing his metaphorical bag. July is where it all starts to crystallise — the transfer business will accelerate, the centenary preparations will intensify, and with any luck, Roma will arrive at the start of pre-season looking and feeling like a club that finally knows exactly who it is and where it is going.