Not even three months ago, AS Roma’s season was in a clear downward spiral. The Giallorossi had slipped to ninth in the Serie A table having lost three of their past five matches. Over the six Serie A matches leading up to head coach José Mourinho’s firing on January 16, Roma had earned just five points. While there’s no doubt that Mourinho is one of the greatest to ever do it and is easily on the coaching Mount Rushmore, it was also obvious that “the game has passed him by” - he’s just not able to get it done at this level anymore.
Roma replaced Mourinho with Daniele De Rossi - a move clearly intended to appeal to the fans. A club legend who spent 18 years as a player for his hometown club, De Rossi was rather inexperienced in the dugout when he took over at the Stadio Olimpico. His only prior coaching stint had been a four-month gig at Serie B club SPAL between October 2022 and February 2023. To say that it did not go well would be an understatement - De Rossi was fired with SPAL in the relegation zone. With this in mind, there was understandably skepticism despite the element of sentimentality in play.
However, De Rossi has clearly banished that skepticism - in the 15 matches since he’s taken over, Roma have won 10 of which eight have been in the league. Arguably none have been more significant than this matchday’s Derby della Capitale 1-0 victory over Lazio. Gianluca Mancini scored the only goal of the match just before half-time to hand Lazio their fourth loss in their past six league matches. With the win, Roma close in on Juventus and Bologna in the chase for a top-four spot and a berth in next season’s Champions League.
All season long across various leagues, we’ve seen the importance of having the right person for the right club as the coach. Of course, there’s no example more obvious than Bayer Leverkusen, where Xabi Alonso is putting the finishing touches on what will surely go down as one of the, if not the single, greatest single-season coaching performances of all time. To potentially win the “Faux Treble” with an Invincibles league campaign - and with an underdog like Leverkusen to boot - is something that will undoubtedly rank among the greatest achievements in football history.
While not nearly at that same level, De Rossi has been the driving force of an impressive turnaround of his own. Mourinho’s preferred 3-5-2 formation was never really the right fit at Roma, considering the personnel at the club’s disposal. De Rossi, on the other hand, quickly moved to implement a 4-3-3 setup instead - a formation that evidently plays to Roma’s strengths. With this setup, Roma’s full-backs are given additional room for final-third play while simultaneously keeping a tight defensive line.
What’s more, De Rossi’s tactics have given players such as Paulo Dybala and Lorenzo Pellegrini more active roles on the attacking front - and this has translated into goals and wins. Dybala in particular looks like a player reborn; having been written off by many for quite some time, the Argentinian forward is now in his best form since his 2017-18 season at Juventus.
The flexibility that De Rossi has brought to Roma’s tactical approach has to be noted as well. Defensively, he’ll often have Roma pivot from four at the back to five, shoring up the backline with wingers often dropping deep. This is where Bryan Cristante, probably Roma’s most underrated player, comes in. The defensive midfielder’s versatility is exactly what Roma have needed when transitioning from defense to offense, sometimes taking on the role of a box-to-box central midfielder - and De Rossi has leveraged this versatility to great effect.
All of this being said, it’s still too early to say for sure if Daniele De Rossi is the real deal or if this is just the “new coach effect” in play with a regression to the mean on the horizon. That being said, things undoubtedly are on the upswing for AS Roma right now. Considering where Roma were when they hired De Rossi, a top-four finish - which now actually seems possible - would be an excellent result.
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