The Roman Report — 26 October 2026 – 1 November 2026

There are weeks when the noise off the pitch threatens to drown out everything happening on it, and this has been one of them. Massimiliano Allegri's tunnel outburst at the Maradona — "Last year they put the Champions League in their pocket, always them" — has been the story that has followed Roma from Saturday night into Monday morning and beyond. The anger at Trigoria is entirely justified. This club clawed its way back to the Champions League after seven years away by winning six and drawing one of their final matches, by outrunning Milan when it mattered most. Allegri's Milan, lest we forget, squandered an eight-point lead with five games to go, lost six of their final ten matches, took a single point from four home games at San Siro, and then lost their decisive fixture to already-safe Cagliari. If the Champions League was placed in anyone's pocket, it was placed there by a spectacular, self-inflicted collapse — one that cost Allegri his own job before he somehow landed at Napoli. Gian Piero Gasperini handled it with characteristic dignity at his Monday press conference, noting simply that the data exists, the testimonies exist, and that the remark was without doubt unfortunate. He is right that nothing needs to be added. The federal prosecutor will now decide whether to open an investigation, and Roma are determined to let the record speak for itself. It does so loudly.

Strip away that controversy and what you are left with is a Roma story that is genuinely exciting to follow. The 3-3 draw at the Maradona was not the comfortable win we all wanted, but it contained multitudes. Leonardo Balerdi — the centre-back who arrived from Marseille on loan in August with next to no fanfare, greeted with more shrugs than cheers — scored twice off the bench and carried himself like a man who has been playing at this level his whole career. Gasperini and sporting director D'Amico clearly saw something in him that the wider market had missed, and with a redemption clause reportedly in the region of fourteen to sixteen million euros, this loan is fast becoming one of the smartest pieces of business in recent memory. And then there is Matías Soulé. At twenty-three years old, with a groin problem having eaten into much of last season and genuine transfer speculation hanging over his summer, Soulé has arrived at a clarity in his game that is wonderful to watch. Four key passes, four dribbles, four balls recovered, eighty-eight percent passing accuracy, a superb left-foot strike that reopened the game in Naples — these are not the numbers of a player still finding himself. Gasperini said after the match that it was extraordinary, really, and he was not wrong. Soulé is playing in multiple roles, shifting to the right, operating as a ten against Napoli, pressing relentlessly. He has the Argentinian national team call-up to show for it. He is growing into precisely the kind of complete, difficult-to-predict forward that this manager loves to build an attack around.

The other Argentine news is of the more anxious variety when it comes to Artem Dovbyk, whose loan at Bologna is quietly becoming a saga with a potentially complicated ending. Palladino has been public in his frustration — "Dovbyk has to give me more" is a hard sentence to read about a striker Roma paid thirty-eight million euros for only two summers ago. One goal, no Serie A starts, left on the bench for the full ninety minutes even when Piccoli was unavailable. Bologna's buy-back option at fifteen million currently looks academic, and January could yet see Dovbyk returning to Rome before finding a new club. Roma's sporting department will be following this closely. The January window is still weeks away, and Roberto Pruzzo on Radio Radio was already noting what most observers can see: that when Malen is shut out, Roma's attacking options thin quickly, and that addressing it is very much in the conversation for the winter market. Dovbyk's situation only makes that conversation more complicated.

For now, though, the immediate focus is on the Olimpico, where Cagliari — a side that has lost two on the bounce and whose defensive solidity has visibly eroded — arrive tomorrow evening at twenty past eight. Fabio Pisacane's team started the season brightly, but they come to Rome in uncertain form, and a Roma side managed by a coach who has never lost a match refereed by Ermanno Feliciani is the last thing they need. Gasperini will rotate, sensibly so. Lulli, who is also closing in on a five-year contract renewal until 2031 — thoroughly deserved for a teenager who has applied himself with real seriousness — could start at right-back. Rodrigo Mora might get another chance in the number ten role. Leonardo Balerdi deserves his starting place after Naples. And Paulo Dybala, who has trained partly with the group and passed his fitness tests, is targeting a place on the bench, which would be the best possible news. La Joya has not scored this season, but having that quality available again, even from the substitute's bench, changes what Gasperini can do in the final half-hour of matches, and the Champions League trip to Manchester United on 3 November makes his return not just welcome but urgent.

Young Daniele Ghilardi also deserves a mention this week, not for any dramatic intervention but for the quiet authority of an interview he gave during the national team camp. Discipline first, then personality, then talent — that is his order. A silent leader who speaks at the right moment and in the right way. Stay on the pitch if you can still contribute; make room if you cannot. It is almost a description of the culture Gasperini has been building at Trigoria, and the fact that a twenty-two-year-old defender internalises it so naturally suggests that culture is genuinely taking root. His performance against Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League showed a player keen to make his case for a regular place in this backline. He is making it.

The other story threading through the week is Mile Svilar's recovery. The Trigoria medical staff are cautiously optimistic. The MRI scan in Belgium on Thursday will tell much of the story. A return for the Manchester United fixture remains tangled in UEFA's eligibility rules — thirty days from the injury date, not from when the list change was communicated — and the Sassuolo home match on the seventh of November currently looks the more realistic target. But his imminent return to the capital and the improving prognosis are welcome after weeks of relying on Gollini, who has done solidly enough without inspiring total confidence. Whether Svilar makes it to Old Trafford is the question that Thursday's scan will begin to answer, and how Roma's squad looks by the time that fixture arrives — with Dybala hopefully rebuilding his match rhythm, Koné aiming to return before the break, and Balerdi cementing his place among the starters — will define just how ambitious our hopes for that night in Manchester ought to be.