How Roma have become unlikely Serie A title challengers this season | OneFootball

Title races in Serie A have become notoriously hard to predict in recent years and, judging by the first five rounds of fixtures, there might be some unlikely contenders for the crown this season.

While Inter have generally been the most powerful force in Italian football in the 2020s and went into this season as favourites and defending champions, the fact that no Serie A team has managed to win back-to-back league titles since Juventus’ nine in a row means it can be anyone’s guess who’ll be top of the table by the end of the season.

And right now, it’s a club on a 25-year Scudetto drought sitting at the summit: Roma. Fast becoming one of the teams to watch in Europe, they’ve been good value for it, too.

It’s thanks to their goal difference that Roma are top of the table as things stand, with Inter and Lazio level on points, but Gian Piero Gasperini’s side have been in first place right from the start thanks to a 4-0 win in their opening game.

A new era began in the Italian capital last summer with the appointment of Gasperini, a coach who had inspired Atalanta to consostently punch above their weight. There had long been intrigue over how Gasperini might fare at a club with grander expectations, especially after his previous disastrous spell in charge of Inter.

Aged 67 at the time of his appointment by Roma, this new challenge appeared to be Gasperini’s last chance to prove himself in a more pressured environment. While Roma don’t boast the trophy cabinet of Juventus, Inter or Milan, there’s a strong weight of expectation among their fanbase to challenge for major honours.

After all, this is a club that was formed by merger specifically to create a heavyweight force to challenge the northern powerhouses from Turin and Milan. Based in a historically powerful city, they have the perfect setting to try and dominate from. But only three league titles have followed in their history – along with a record number of runners-up finishes – and Gasperini arrived at a time when Roma had gone seven seasons without qualifying for the Champions League.

It was a firm step in the right direction, then, for Gasperini to get Roma over the line to finish third by the end of his first season in charge. There were teething problems, especially in the first half of the season before the January signing of Donyell Malen from Aston Villa transformed their attacking output, but for the Giallorossi faithful, the ‘how’ mattered far less than the ‘what’ when it came to them returning to the Champions League.

And their newfound status among Europe’s elite seems to have put the wind in their sails. They navigated a complicated summer transfer window – Roma have been walking a Financial Fair Play tightrope for a number of years after a backlog of historic issues – without losing any of their key players, despite the threat looming for several weeks.

That includes Manu Kone, much to their relief after his eye-catching World Cup campaign with France and a deadline-day approach from Chelsea.

Kone was a game-changing signing for Roma two years ago, re-energising a midfield that had too often been lethargic in the preceding seasons. Standing out with his ball-carrying ability and strength, Kone quickly proved himself a top asset.

Roma resisted interest in Kone from Inter just one year after his arrival, and then from Chelsea another 12 months later. Retaining players of that level was always going to be paramount to any prolonged and sustainable success.

In their most recent match before the international slog, Kone scored a brace in Roma’s head-to-head clash with Inter. Those goals put them 2-0 up, but Inter fought back to claim a 2-2 draw, thus denying Roma the chance to be outright leaders in the Serie A standings.

But big wins against Fiorentina and Lecce, plus another win to nil against Torino – with a smash-and-grab win over Atalanta in between showing another way to three points – had already done the heavy lifting for Roma to have the better goal difference.

If Kone can replicate what he did against Inter more often, it would only boost their chances. He’s often mis-profiled as a defensive midfielder, even to an extent by Gasperini last season, but goals – or just general impact in the final third – have been the missing element from his game until now, so he might be reaching the next level at the ideal time.

And yes, Malen’s still scoring for fun. Six goals from five league games so far have him top of the Serie A scoring charts. He wasn’t even far off last season, despite only being there for half of it. The prospect of a full season of Malen is a tantalising one for Roma fans.

What has also helped is Paulo Dybala rolling back the years. The former Juventus star, now in his fifth season with Roma, assisted all three of Malen’s goals against Fiorentina. No player in Serie A has created more chances, made more assists or made more accurate passes in the final third than Dybala this season.

His connection with Malen is almost instinctive. Roma couldn’t make the most of it much last season because of Dybala’s injury issues, but he’s been fit enough to be their third most-used outfield player so far this season. Gasperini throws caution to the wind and insists that if Dybala is healthy and enjoying himself, he stays on. He has been rewarded with magic.

In the bigger picture, there’s more fluidity in how Roma are playing this season. The tactics Gasperini mastered over a number of years with Atalanta are starting to become second nature for his current cohort too.

Some imperfections remain, of course. A failure to sign a right-footed winger overshadowed their summer transfer window and might catch up with them. But Roma are dreaming right now. They already have big celebrations slated for next year, when they’ll be celebrating their centenary. How sweeter would those celebrations be with a fourth league title as the cherry on top?

Of course, they will remain wary of other contenders in the title race, who have ample time to make ground on them. Simply finishing in the top four again would probably, depending on context, be seen as a success for Roma. But if they continue how they’ve been playing, they’ll have to be taken seriously.

If the old adage that attack wins games and defence wins titles rings true anywhere, it’s Italy. And as much as they’ve stood out for their attacking endeavour so far, a style Gasperini has always tried to buck the trend with in Serie A, they have bolstered their defensive depth to the extent of having six centre-backs to choose from.

None are immune to an error, but all are trustworthy enough. Only Cagliari, a surprise presence in the current top four, have conceded fewer goals so far than Roma, who also boast the league’s best goalkeeper – as awarded for the past two seasons consecutively – in Mile Svilar.

Furthermore, the emergence of Emanuele Lulli, a local teenage right wing-back who was yet to make his senior debut before the summer but started Roma’s first four league games of the season, has given them further reason to let their minds drift to the future.

Only time will tell if this form is something that Roma can preserve. It’s been a long time since they last even had a title challenge, let alone a successful one. But in an ever-unpredictable league, they have suddenly established themselves as ones to watch.