A New Roman Empire? How Gasperini is Revolutionising Roma
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A New Roman Empire? How Gasperini is Revolutionising Roma

A New Roman Empire? How Gasperini is Revolutionising Roma

Just under 12 months ago, AS Roma were a side struggling to pinpoint their identity. They sat 13th in the Italian Serie A, had won just three league games by early December, and were receiving pelters from football fans all over the country, including their own fans, on a daily basis.

Fast forward a shade over 10 months, and the I Giallorossi are back where they belong, challenging at the very summit of the Italian top flight after making their best start to a Serie A season in 14 years.

A remarkable resurgence under Claudio Ranieri last season laid the foundations for a promising campaign this year, but the appointment of former Atalanta manager Gian Piero Gasperini is showing promise of taking the club to the next level.

Roma currently occupy second place and are breathing right down defending champions Napoli’s necks, the two separated by just a single score on goal difference. Moreover, just six games into the season, there is already a three-point gap to fourth place, with Napoli, AC Milan and, of course, Roma the early front-runners.

Gasperini has impressed tremendously in the early stages of his reign, and people are quite rightly starting to wonder if Roma are on track to win their first Serie A title since 2001. Has Gasperini got the nerve to go a step further than he did with Atalanta? Or will familiar demons come back to bite him?

Roma’s Resurgence Circa December 2024

Before I dive into what Gasperini is doing at Roma, huge credit must first be given to Claudio Ranieri. The Leicester hero came in during November of last year when Roma were in dire straits, and while he started his third spell at the club with a few poor results, the “tinkerman” quickly steadied the ship - more than that, he totally transformed the club.

Prior to Ranieri’s appointment, Roma had three wins in 12 league games, had scored just 17 goals in 16 games across all competitions, and had conceded 20 in return. During this spell they lost to Serie A minnows Empoli and Hellas Verona, and had also collapsed to a shock 1-0 defeat at the hands of Swedish unknowns Elfsborg in the Europa League.

In the 36 games that elapsed after Ranieri’s appointment, Roma turned the tide in a big way. They scored 61 times, averaging close to two goals per game, and conceded just 32, keeping 14 clean sheets along the way. But most importantly, of those 36 games, 22 were wins, and just seven ended in defeat - three of those came in the first month of Ranieri’s appointment.

Oddly enough, Ranieri didn’t make any radical changes to the formation: he typically rotated between a 3-4-2-1 and a 3-5-2, both of which had been used by his unsuccessful predecessor Ivan Juric, who was sacked just three months into the season. In fact, the only major change saw Bayern and Dortmund legend Mats Hummels introduced to the starting lineup, after Juric naively refused to play the iconic German centre back in his first three months at the club.

What Ranieri has in bags is personality, as well as the huge amount of respect that comes with it when such an experienced, successful manager takes charge at a new club. Almost instantly, the players looked more motivated and were once again playing for the badge and manager, something they were not doing under Juric.

Their resurgence in form saw them miraculously finish inside the top five, qualifying for the Europa League as a result - however, Ranieri announced early on in his tenure that he would be retiring once again at the end of the season, having come out of retirement to guide Roma back to the upper echelons of Serie A.

While many were sad that the great Italian left, one thing everyone could agree on was the fact that he had laid the foundations for something great. He had shown that the players at the club were more than capable of achieving fantastic things together, but that they needed to be guided by the right coach in order to squeeze every last drop of blood, sweat and tears out of them.

Enter Gian Piero Gasperini …

A Seasoned Campaigner

Like Ranieri, 67-year-old Gasperini is no newbie when it comes to the coaching scene. Boasting 22 years of experience across multiple Italian leagues - all of his experience has come in his home country - he is a seasoned campaigner and a devilishly tricky one at that.

After all, he is the man who pulled Atalanta from their barely watchable mid-table mediocrity when he took over in 2016, and turned them into a formidable unit that failed to qualify for Europe only once under his guidance.

But he is so much more than his nine-year stint at the Orabicci. Gasperini has held posts in both the second and third tiers of Italy at the likes of Crotone and Genoa, and by 2011 had earned a chance at the Inter Milan hotseat. Despite the job ending up being the very definition of a hot seat (Gasperini lasted less than four months), the Italian refused to be bowed by his poor showing and quickly found employment again, this time at Palermo.

And this was the case for much of Gasperini’s coaching career. He was widely regarded as an exceptionally talented coach, but the Inter Milan debacle prevented him from receiving any major job offers.

At Atalanta, that all changed. Although they could not break through the dense jungle of proven Serie A winners above them, Atalanta registered multiple top-four finishes with Gasperini at the helm. And then, to crown off his achievements at the club, the coach lifted the first ever trophy of his managerial career as his Atalanta side demolished Xabi Alonso’s invincible Bayer Leverkusen side in the Europa League final, with winger Ademola Lookman notching an already storied hat trick.

Perhaps feeling he had accomplished all he could at the club, the Italian announced in February of this year that he would be allowing his contract to expire at the end of the season. In what was a generally amorous parting of ways, Gasperini said all the right things:

“The termination of my relationship with the club was decided by me - I’ve simply come to understand that the time has come to take the next step.” He then cited his desire for “new motivations, new stimuli, and renewed enthusiasm” as contributing factors for leaving, before finishing off by saying, “I leave Atalanta at the highest possible point.”

Just 12 days after the curtain fell on the 2024/25 season, and with it on Gasperini’s storied time at Atalanta, the coach was announced as the new head coach of AS Roma, an appointment which looks set to spark a new era in Italian football.

What Has Gasperini Brought to Roma?

A man renowned for taking forwards to another level as well as for developing talent let go by other clubs, Gasperini has brought savvy decision-making and an attractive style to Italy’s capital, and importantly, the Roma squad at his disposal have clicked with his methods immediately.

The coach as started as he means to go on, with Roma winning five of their first six games, including picking up all three points against city rivals Lazio. They haven’t necessarily been blowing teams out of the water, but then again, they haven’t needed to.

First of all, they control the tempo of the game. Gasperini’s side boast the third highest possession figure (59.3%) of all Serie A teams - Roma’s opponents quickly find out that the less they have of the ball, the more minute their chances of winning grow.

Moreover, the backline has been a veritable brick wall this season, conceding just two goals in the league so far and a meagre four across all competitions. Only AC Milan can boast a lesser total (3), but importantly, they are not competing in Europe this season, while Roma are already two games into their Europa League campaign.

A total of four clean sheets for goalkeeper Mile Svilar only emphasises the defensive mastery which Gasperini has instilled in his side. Prior to the season starting, opponents would have looked at a backline of Mario Hermoso, Gianluca Mancini, Evan N’Dicka and Mile Svilar and thought, “It’s not bad, but we can take them!”

Now, opponents look at the confirmed lineup an hour before kick-off, beading with sweat and hoping against hope that they catch them on a rare bad day.

One area where Gasperini has struggled to impose his philosophy is in attack: while his side may have conceded just twice, they have scored just seven in return. Their current approach is winning them games, and relatively comfortably if the stats are consulted, but to take a one-goal margin into the last 10 minutes of each and every game cannot be good for anyone’s blood pressure, let alone the 67-year-old’s.

However, this lack of end product is likely just a teething problem. Gasperini has a history of crafting some lethal attacking lineups across his career, particularly while at Atalanta. Remember Alejandro Gomez, Duvan Zapata and Luis Muriel in 2020/21? Or better still, Gomez, Zapata and Ilicic of the season before? FIFA Ultimate Team bogeymen they were.

Now, with Artem Dovbyk, the on-loan Evan Ferguson, Paulo Dybala, Leon Bailey, and the rapidly improving Matias Soule all at his disposal, Gasperini is not short of options at the top of the pitch.

In all likelihood, the player’s familiarity with his style will only grow week on week, and with increased familiarity comes that effortless, fluid, endlessly exciting style that we saw for years in Atalanta.

With six games of the season gone, nobody is saying that for Roma to fall off and fail to win the Serie would be a disappointment - there is simply too much football left to play. But with a steady hand at the helm, and an exciting style that suits the squad, Gian Piero Gasperini certainly has them on the right track.

Benji Kosartiyer
Journalist

Harry Pascoe

Lead Writer

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