What Tactical Previews did Roma’s 4-0 Victory Over Fiorentina Give For the Season Ahead? | OneFootball

At the Olimpico on Saturday, August 24, Roma put together a display that went further than the usual opening-day adrenaline: dominant possession and chance creation that kept coming, while Fiorentina struggled to build anything resembling a move.

Possession sat at 61% for the hosts against 39% for Fiorentina, which is more than can be said for the shot counts, where the numbers moved around depending on who was counting. Shots on target were the clearest gap: seven for Roma against a single one from Fiorentina all afternoon. Roma also completed nearly twice as many passes as their visitors and won the aerial battle comfortably, 9 duels to 3. What stood out more than any single number was the shape of the pressing: wing backs pushing forward with real consistency and a high line that didn’t switch off even when the ball looked lost, closer to the front-foot version of Gasperini’s football than the more cautious, results-first team we mostly saw for long stretches last season.

One match isn’t enough to declare a tactical shift official, but when what you watched lines up with what little hard data holds steady across sources, the signal still carries some weight.

Malen and Dybala are already speaking the same language

Donyell Malen closed the game with a hat-trick, in the 27th, 52nd and 60th minutes, and every single goal came from a Paulo Dybala assist. One player supplying all three assists for a Serie A hat-trick is rarer than you’d think: the last time it happened was May 2, 2021, when Rodrigo Palacio scored a treble for Bologna against Fiorentina off three assists from Emanuel Vignato, in a game that finished 3-3. Malen walked off with a perfect 10.0 Sofascore rating after just 68 minutes, subbed before full time because there was nothing left to prove.

Whether he could carry his form over from last spring was the question hanging over him all summer, and he seems to have answered it before September even started. Roma lined up in a 3-4-1-2, with Rodrigo Mora handed the number ten role on his debut and Dybala pushed up alongside Malen as a strike pairing rather than out wide, which makes the volume of service he still managed to produce for his strike partner more impressive, not less.

With gaps in the back line, a few academy players filled in and demonstrated that Gasperini has more than one alternative to lean on once the fixture list gets crowded, which it will once European competition starts up again in September. It’s the kind of performance that makes you wonder whether the sportsbooks and bookmakers behind crypto casinos in Pakistan and beyond taking early action on Serie A futures will already be nudging Roma’s top-four price down a notch.

Mastantuono, Fiorentina’s marquee summer signing, remained their only real source of quality in the final third, isolated for long stretches, while Pellegrino barely saw a playable ball inside the box. The introductions of Kean and Oulai shortly after the hour mark tried to add some weight and unpredictability up front, but a single shot on target across ninety minutes is the kind of number that should worry a team with any real European ambition.