AS Roma: The Giallorossi’s lightning start could sow seeds for title challenge
Manager Rudi Garcia (C) and Daniele De Rossi (R) of AS Roma celebrate the victory after the Serie A match against SS Lazio at Stadio Olimpico on September 22, 2013 in Rome, Italy. (Getty Images)
Following the 2-0 victory over Lazio on Sunday, AS Roma were awash with emotion. And manager Rudi Garcia, boasting a 100% record from four games after joining the club in the summer, became at one with the fans.
“I feel like one of you. I feel like a Romanista” he said, while his left-back Federico Balzaretti admitted he was forced to tears after scoring the opening goal. “I felt such incredible joy and emotion” said the 31-year-old. “This doesn’t happen very often, I tend to score once every four years, so to do it in the derby.”
If the scorer of Roma’s vital breakthrough goal was unfamiliar, it was his first for the club since joining last August; the provider, however, was very much recognisable. Floating in the cross from which Balzaretti volleyed home was Francesco Totti, still showing his class at the age of 36 and just two days after signing a new contract that will see him stay with the club for two more seasons.
This season marks his 21st year with the Giallorossi, which has yielded just the one Scudetto, though the early indications are that he could make a genuine bid to add to that this year after a fine start to the campaign.
Garcia urged caution, saying “we must stay humble, we shouldn’t forget that our aim is to finish the season in the top five. To be ambitious is a quality, maybe we can have a good season, but it’s too early at the moment”.
Ten goals scored with just one conceded have been the numbers behind the opening four games which have encouraged such ambition, though the former Lille coach will do well to bear in mind how quickly fortunes can change given the madness of the last few years in the Italian capital.
Garcia is Roma’s fifth manager since the departure of Claudio Ranieri in 2011, two seasons that have seen them finish sixth and seventh, and it will take a lot more than four games to validate claims for the title.
Encouraging signs have come in the form of Alessandro Florenzi, the 22-year-old academy product who has scored two goals, and the excellent, ageless performances of Totti who has registered three assists so far.
Miralem Pjanic has been impressive in forming a solid midfield combination with the ever-consistent Danielle De Rossi and Kevin Strootman, who arrived from PSV Eindhoven for £15 million in the summer.
Garcia’s other big money signings, Gervinho and Adem Ljajic, who got his second goal for his new club with a late penalty in the Rome derby, have both performed well in attack, ensuring the summer sales of Pablo Osvaldo and Erik Lamela will not be missed too much.