The Roman Report — 10 August 2026 – 16 August 2026

The news that Pietro Mezzaroma passed away on 4 August at the age of 91 deserves more than a footnote in the margins of Roma's summer. Here was a man who, when the club faced genuine collapse in 1993 — Ciarrapico arrested, the organisation in freefall — stepped forward not out of vanity but out of something rarer: a sense of civic obligation. A carpenter's son who had rebuilt Rome brick by brick, who had raised entire districts from the postwar rubble, Mezzaroma looked at the Giallorossi and saw another city institution worth saving. His months inside the ownership structure were brief — he was gone by November, graciously clearing the path for Franco Sensi rather than prolonging an arrangement that suited neither man's temperament — but his fingerprints lingered. He oversaw a youth academy where his son Massimo worked and where a teenager named Francesco Totti was just beginning to discover what he might become. That alone earns him a place in our affections. And then there is the detail that breaks your heart with its tenderness: so scarred by the 1984 European Cup final defeat to Liverpool that he became convinced he personally brought bad luck to the club, Mezzaroma stopped attending matches altogether. He loved Roma too much to risk hurting them. May he rest in peace, and may the city he helped rebuild remember what it owes him.

On a considerably more animated note, Nahuel Molina touched down at Ciampino on Sunday evening at 18:25, and if you know anything about how Roma supporters feel about a proper right-back — a real one, with legs and lungs and the willingness to bomb forward and track back inside ninety minutes — then you will understand why this arrival felt like a small exhale of relief. Molina is not an unknown quantity in Italian football. His Udinese years showed a player who relished the physical demands of Serie A, and his time at Atlético Madrid added the kind of competitive hardness that Gian Piero Gasperini will know exactly how to deploy. Wesley, for one, was effusive in his praise, calling Molina a great footballer who will provide significant help — and Wesley is not a man who throws compliments carelessly. The Argentine brings his EU passport and his World Cup legs to a squad that has just secured Champions League football for the first time in seven years. The timing feels right.

Speaking of Wesley — and we should speak of Wesley more often, because he is quietly becoming one of the most important players in this squad — his media session during the British pre-season tour was a masterclass in measured confidence. He was asked about the 3–0 defeat to Brighton, and he handled it the way a seasoned professional handles a question he has already answered internally. He knows what Gasperini does in August. We all know by now, or at least we should: last summer Roma lost 4–0 to Aston Villa in the same window; Atalanta, in Gasperini's final season in Bergamo, were hammered 4–1 by Parma before opening their Serie A campaign with a 4–0 win over Lecce. On 5 August 2023, during the Europa League–winning campaign, they conceded four to Union Berlin. The man builds his squads to peak in September, not July, and the brutal physical loading of these summer weeks is the mechanism by which he does it. Trust the process, as the cliché goes — except with Gasperini, the process has actual evidence behind it. Wesley said as much, calmly and without defensiveness, and then turned to the Champions League with the wide-eyed excitement of a player who has never experienced it but suspects, correctly, that it is about to change his life. His warmth about Lorenzo Pellegrini's return to the squad was also quietly touching — the Brazilian in a dressing room full of Argentines, he joked, but entirely at home.

The transfer front, meanwhile, is the usual summer cocktail of excitement, frustration, and creative accounting. The Rodrigo Mora pursuit is real — a Roma scout was physically present at Porto's opening league match against Alverca to watch the 2007-born winger in a 2–0 win, even if Mora himself only appeared in the final 25 minutes. The obstacle is Porto's absolute refusal to entertain any loan-with-option arrangement. They want a permanent fee in the region of €45 to €50 million, and they are not blinking. Roma are searching for a structure that works, which is admirable, but the clock is ticking. Equally complex is the Endrick situation: Roma want him on a two-year loan from Real Madrid, and Wesley has been very publicly enthusiastic about the prospect of a fellow Brazilian in the squad — though he was careful to note, twice, that these decisions belong to the sporting director. The complication is that Matías Soulé must first be sold to fund the push, and Galatasaray have emerged as genuine suitors for the Argentine winger. Nothing here is straightforward, but then nothing in a Roma summer ever is.

There is also Gabriel Martinelli floating around the edges of Tony D'Amico's thinking — a genuinely tantalising name, a Gasperini winger in every sense, but the salary question is a serious one. Eleven million euros gross per season is not a figure Roma's wage structure can simply absorb, and Arsenal want at least €40 million despite the contract expiring in a year. Interesting, then, that Roc Nation represents Martinelli, Malick Fofana, and Endrick alike — there may be room for creative conversation there, though creative conversation does not always translate into completed business. Closer to resolution, perhaps, is Alessio Cacciamani of Torino. Roma's opening bid of €8 million fixed plus bonuses was rightly rejected by a club that sees the young winger as an important piece, but a revised package approaching €15 million in combined fees and bonuses is being prepared, and fresh contacts were scheduled for this week. Torino president Cairo is a notoriously stubborn negotiator, but there is a deal here if Roma push hard enough.

The season opener is only weeks away now, and the picture is becoming clearer even as details remain blurry. Molina is here. Pellegrini is back. Wesley is hungry, Gasperini's squad is being loaded like a catapult in August so it can fire properly in September, and the Champions League — seven years in the wilderness — is waiting on the other side of all this noise. Whatever happens with Mora and Endrick and Martinelli and Cacciamani, the real business begins very soon, and this Roma side has every reason to believe it is ready.