IT is a fixture that Italy’s capital city waits months for, the anticipation building daily as it approaches and which culminates in the Stadio Olimpico transforming into a vibrant cauldron of colour, smoke and noise each time AS Roma face bitter rivals Lazio. This truly is a game where legends are born, heroes arise and legacies are defined, a single goal capable of making any player eternally adored on one side of town but loathed forever on the other.
While the two teams share a stadium, they will arrive at Sunday’s latest instalment of the Derby della Capitale in very different circumstances. Roma are a club in the midst of a total transformation, the last few tumultuous seasons causing chaos at every level and forcing them to undergo a complete overhaul. That is not limited only to on-field matters either as Dan Friedkin landed in Italy earlier this week to complete his takeover of the club, the Texan billionaire expected to pay compatriot James Pallotta somewhere in the region of €780 million to buy Roma outright.
Everything has changed on the pitch too, the side unrecognisable from the one which reached the semifinals of the Champions League just 18 months ago. Many of the key players from that remarkable run have left, Alisson Becker joining Liverpool while Kostas Manolas, Radja Nainggolan and Kevin Strootman were among those to follow him through the exit.
Back to work this morning…
#ASRoma #RomaLazio pic.twitter.com/knUK7MrOIr— AS Roma English (@ASRomaEN) January 23, 2020
Skipper Daniele De Rossi left for Boca Juniors and has since retired from football, while boss Eusebio Di Francesco not only oversaw a collapse from Roma last season, he also steered Sampdoria to the foot of Serie A earlier this term. Sacked by both clubs, his reputation has taken a serious blow from which he may never recover, but the man currently tasked with leading the Giallorossi is already impressing many observers.
Paulo Fonseca is clearly a man with a plan, immediately abandoning the approach of his predecessor to install his own ideas, his 4-2-3-1 system relying on quick ball movement, one-touch passing and intelligent movement in all departments. Roma finished in a disappointing sixth-place last season, but have climbed to fourth in the current campaign on the back of some excellent performances.
They have done so while suffering an unfathomable number of injuries, the most notable of which was Nicolo Zaniolo’s ACL tear earlier this month. That not only robbed the club of one of its most talented stars, but it also marked the fifteenth such injury for a Roma player over the past six years, including one for former Chelsea defender Davide Zappacosta in October. Add their other long-term absentees who are currently on the treatment table – Javier Pastore, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Federico Fazio – and the impact of Fonseca begins to look even more remarkable.
Yet while this rebuilding Roma have looked very good in 2019/20, they have undoubtedly been overshadowed by Lazio. Unlike their city cousins who are seemingly starting from scratch for the sixth time in the past decade, the long-term vision of Biancocelesti has begun to pay huge dividends.
Simone Inzaghi has been at the helm for almost four years, slowly and methodically building a team that has now suddenly blossomed into a truly excellent side. During his tenure the club had already won the 2017 Supercoppa Italiana and added the Coppa Italia last season, but this term they have shown a clearly visible improvement.
Last month they beat Juventus comfortably in the league and repeated the feat just a few days later to lift the Supercoppa once again, the two matches that punctuated what has been a superb run of form. Indeed, Lazio will take to the field on Sunday having won each of their last 11 Serie A fixtures, but nobody at the club is resting on their laurels, instead demanding that they continue the hard work that has brought them this far.
“We must be hungrier and more determined every single day,” sporting director Igli Tare told RAI Sport earlier this week. “Compliments are pleasing, but they can also be counter-productive, so we’ve got to be on our toes to the very end. It’s important that we keep up the pace with even more grit, because the games are only going to get tougher and the opponents even more fired up against us.”
Lazio are now 3 points off top spot in the Serie A!
W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W
11 league wins on the bounce. pic.twitter.com/BQVFICAktu
— Oddschanger (@Oddschanger) January 19, 2020
Tare undoubtedly deserves plenty of credit for the squad he has assembled, from unearthing gems like Sergej Milinković-Savić to resurrecting the careers of those cast aside by other clubs such as Joaquín Correa and Luis Alberto. But no player embodies that latter category more than Ciro Immobile, a striker who was Serie A’s leading goal scorer with Torino back in 2013/14 but who subsequently flopped at Borussia Dortmund, Sevilla and even in a second spell with Toro and the end of the 2015/16 campaign.
He would join Lazio the following summer for just €8.75 million and hit the ground running instantly, netting on his debut and scoring 23 league goals that season before adding 29 a year later. Immobile was restricted by injuries last term, but he is on fire thus far in 2019/20, a hat-trick in last week’s 5-1 demolition of Sampdoria taking him to 23 in Serie A alone.
Adding three in four outings for the national team, two in the Europa League and another in the Coppa Italia underlines just how dangerous the 29-year-old has been this term, while his tally of five assists shows he is making an impact even when he is not taking shots himself. “He is a great goalscorer, but first and foremost a real team player,” Inzaghi told reporters at the weekend. “The goals are only part of his contribution.”
Immobile is also only one piece of a squad that owner Claudio Lotito likened to a Ferrari before the season got underway, and they are certainly firing on all cylinders at the moment. They have scored in each of their last 24 home games, netting 57 times in all over that period and are undefeated at the Olimpico since May last year.
Their form has brought them to within two points of second place Inter, but this weekend it is the team below them who they must concentrate on. Roma of course would love nothing more than to be the ones who end Lazio’s winning run and while it will not be easy, in a game as fiery as the Derby della Capitale, nothing is impossible.
