At the end of the first round last season, Roma showed French coach Rudi Garcia the backdoor after a mixed record of nine wins and seven draws from 19 games – hardly enough to ensure a top-three finish, let alone make a creditable challenge for the scudetto.
In January, Luciano Spalletti made a headline-grabbing return to the capital and set about reviving Roma’s fortunes.
Fourteen wins, four draws and only one defeat (against Juventus) enabled Roma to finish third, behind Juventus and Napoli, and book Italy’s last remaining Champions League spot.
One expected Roma to build on such a strong finish but 2016/17 is turning out to be yet another uninspiring campaign for the club and their supporters.
Earlier this month, the Giallorossi were unexpectedly knocked out by Porto in the third qualifying round of the Champions League, losing 4-1 on aggregate.
A 1-1 away draw looked to have put Roma in a strong position to eliminate the two-times European champions. In this game, Spalletti’s side were reduced to 10 men from as early as the 41st minute after Belgian defender Thomas Vermaelen was sent off on his Roma debut.
Nonetheless, Roma could still have closed out the tie had they taken the numerous scoring chances that came their way.
A week later, on August 23, disaster struck for Roma as Felipe scored early before Daniele de Rossi and Emerson Palmieri were dismissed to shatter the Italian team’s hopes of advancing.
Roma conceded two more goals to become the latest Italian club to miss out on a place in the UEFA Champions League group stage.
For the record, since 2010, only Milan in 2013, then under the charge of Massimiliano Allegri, succeeded in reaching the group phase via the third qualifying round as Sampdoria (2010, eliminated by Werder Bremen), twice Udinese (2011 and 2012, by Arsenal and Braga respectively), Napoli (2014, Athletic Bilbao) and Lazio (2015, Bayer Leverkusen) succumbed at this stage of the competition.
Failure to make inroads in the tournament is estimated to cost a club €35 million in revenue.
Before the summer transfer window came to a close, Roma were being linked with a big-money move for Fiorentina’s Spanish holding midfielder Borja Valero but the deal did not materialise due to the club’s premature exit from the UEFA Champions League.
In the Serie A, Roma were off to an indifferent start.
A 4-0 home success over minnows Udinese in the season’s curtain-raiser augured well but Roma were immediately brought down to earth with a 2-2 draw at Cagliari.
A hard-fought 3-2 home win against Sampdoria was followed by a 0-1 defeat at the hands of Fiorentina.
A resounding 4-0 home victory against Serie A newcomers Crotone enabled Roma to bounce back. But, on Sunday, Spalletti’s men suffered their second defeat of the term as they crashed to unfancied Torino, losing 3-1– their first defeat against the Maroons in 26 years.
In last weekend’s game, Francesco Totti, who turned 40 yesterday, came on as a second-half substitute and scored Roma’s goal from the penalty spot – his 250th strike for Roma in the Serie A.
The Giallorossi talisman is the second most prolific in the history of the Serie A. He is 24 goals behind Silvio Piola’s record haul of 274 Serie A goals.
Evergreen Totti
What is expected to be the final year of Totti’s career is turning out to be an eventful one for the Roma captain.
In his first appearance this season, he equalled Paolo Maldini’s record of playing in 25 Serie A seasons.
In that game, with Roma 2-1 down against Sampdoria, the veteran playmaker came on as a substitute and provided an impeccable assist for Edin Dzeko’s temporary equaliser before condemning Sampdoria with an injury-time goal from the penalty spot to help his team secure all points at stake.
Moreover, thanks to his strike, Totti managed to score in each of the last 23 consecutive seasons of his illustrious career.
It is somewhat ironic that Roma are still depending on their 40-year-old captain to get the points considering that, last summer, they spent around €35 million on three players – Alison, Gerson and Juan Jesus – yet to leave an impact on the team. They have been regularly left on the substitutes’ bench by Spalletti.
Roma have a porous defence. In nine games in all competitions so far, they have already let in 13 goals and lost three games – exactly the same number of games they lost between January and May of last term (vs Juventus and twice against Real Madrid in the Champions League).
Spalletti needs to reverse this negative trend fast, starting from tomorrow’s Europa League Group E match against Romanian minnows Astra Giurgiu.
On Sunday evening, Roma (10 points) host Inter (11 points) in another hard-fought encounter, where the stakes are very high with the losing team in this game potentially dropping out of the title race from as early as the seventh day.