Edin Dzeko continued his hot streak in front of goal as Roma battled back from a goal down to win 3-1 at Sassuolo.
The Bosnia international has now scored 10 goals in as many games and Roma needed his scoring touch after they fell behind to Paolo Cannavaro's 12th-minute header.
Dzeko had already hit the crossbar before he equalised on 57 minutes, and then won and converted a 76th-minute penalty.
Radja Nainggolan made the points safe, and kept Roma two points adrift of
As a boy, the last thing Francesco Totti used to see before he turned off the light and fell asleep in his bedroom in via Vetulonia was a poster of The Prince, Giuseppe Giannini. He dreamed of being just like him.
Giannini was a Roman like Totti. He grew up in the city's African quarter and not only joined the club he supported but became their captain and No.10 as well. One can imagine the hours Totti spent sat up in bed visualising himself in those colours and in that role, the commentary running through his head in the pick-up games he played in the local churchyard on via Cilicia. "Giannini takes the ball... Giannini shoots... GIANNINI!"
As Totti turns 40, it can't be easy for his friends and family to find him the perfect birthday present. What do you get the man who has everything? Unlike so many of us whose dreams go unfulfilled, Totti lives his with eyes wide open. He has been Roma's captain and No.10 for years and in 2001 helped Roma win their third ever Scudetto. Today the posters adorning the bedroom walls of Rome's youth show Totti, Er Capitano. For years, they have gone to bed dreaming of walking in his footsteps.
This season is Totti's 25th as a professional. The match-winning penalty he put away against Sampdoria in stoppage time the other week also just so happened to ensure he stamped his name on the scoresheet for a 23rd consecutive year. For an entire generation seeing Totti in giallorosso has been one of life's certainties, and an infinitely more pleasurable one than experiencing death and paying taxes. "I grew up on bread and Totti," they say.
His longevity astonishes. Luciano Spalletti believes Totti could play on for another five years: more proof, if more were necessary, that life really does begin at 40. Looking further ahead, that perhaps 50 is the new 40, as Totti will no doubt still be able to play the same delicious over-the-top on-the-turn pass he executed for Edin Dzeko against Crotone even then. There are just some things you never lose. Genius does not grow old. It has no age.
And yet the Great Beauty of watching Totti these days comes in seeing a footballer who is under absolutely no illusion that the end of his playing career is approaching. Rather than rage against the dying of the light, Totti seems to delight in it, to be completely at peace with it. There is no bitterness and anger at the dawning realization that time waits for no man, only a zen-like serenity, an embrace in acceptance. Totti appears to play with an appreciation that his time as a player is short. Not one minute goes to waste. He is making the most of every second he has got left.
Late last season it looked as if Roma would not extend his contract beyond the summer, but Totti recaptured his brilliance. Il Rey di Roma averaged a goal every 51 minutes over the final three months of the season and this season carpe diem continues to be his motto. What we're getting is Totti distilled. The pure essence. Small, intense doses that blow your mind. The absolute proof. A shot of Totti. The best of him. His last 13 appearances in the league, almost all of which have come as a late substitute, have brought six goals and five assists. Sunday's was his 250th in Serie A.
It's genuinely remarkable particularly at a time when other players who made their debuts as 16-year-olds - Cesc Fabregas and Wayne Rooney spring to mind - begin to decline in their late 20s and early 30s and excuses are made that they have so many games under their belt and in reality, have the bodies of 35-year-olds. Totti, lest we forget, emerged at a time when Serie A was not only the best league in the world, but the most competitive, exacting and unforgiving of all-time. He played in a position where he didn't dish out the kicking - like Paolo Maldini and Javier Zanetti - but got kicked and was often doubled or even tripled teamed by hatchet men disguised as defenders. That left ankle of his is held together by a metal plate and some screws.
But Totti, at 40, still affects games. He still wins matches. He is the image of his city: the Eternal city. Bruno Conti thinks Totti should get a museum for his birthday. Simone Perrotta, his former teammates, believes "more football, at least another year" would go down well. "A two-year contract would be better [than a present]," Vincenzo Montella added, "because he still entertains and makes people emotional." A lifetime achievement Ballon d'Or would certainly look nice on the mantlepiece. The most novel gift idea of all, however, came from Spalletti. "I was thinking of the DeLorean from Back to the Future." That way Totti could go back and relive the highs or go forward and see what's next.
If Totti did set the DeLorean to 1992 we know one thing: he would still turn down Milan. If he set it to 2004, he would still pass up the chance to join Real Madrid. "Players today are like nomads," Totti said in July. "They follow money and not their heart." Totti stayed true to his when he could have won and earned a lot more elsewhere. He has been a gift to Roma. Happy Birthday, Francesco.
New Roma signing Gerson has said moving to the club "was the best choice for me."
Gerson, 20, joined from Brazilian club Fluminense for €16.6 million after having been strongly linked with Barcelona.
The midfielder spoke to reporters at a news conference, saying he would wear the Roma shirt "with great pride."
"I am happy to be here and I will do my best," he said. "I chose Roma because they are a great team. It was the best choice for me."
The Brazil under-20 international said he hoped to follow in the footsteps of countrymen who had shone in Italian football.
"I would love to be remembered like many fellow Brazilians at Roma," he added. "Paulo Roberto Falcao is a legend, but I never got to see him play.
"Now I have to prove my worth. I am ready to do my best to help my teammates."
Gerson said Roma were targeting silverware next season, and added: "I thank everyone for the praise. I know it means I have responsibility, but I am ready to do my best."
Roma's excellent finish to the 2015-16 Serie A season has offered hope that coach Luciano Spalletti can build on the progress made since his return to the Italian capital in January and make a run at the title next term.
The Giallorossi collected more points than any other team bar champions Juventus in the second half of the season -- five more than Napoli, who beat them to second place by two points -- and the 83 goals (47 under Spalletti) they scored were the league's highest.
With a few additions to the squad, Spalletti could surely have a good go at closing the 11-point gap between his side and Juventus, but with the club having to find €30 million by the end of June to satisfy UEFA's financial fair play requirements, some valuable players have to go, and one name stands out: Miralem Pjanic.
Roma were fined €6 million in May last year for "non-compliance of FFP break-even regulations," and the fear is that they could be banned from European competition if they fail to balance the books by the June 30 deadline. Pjanic has a €38m buy-out clause that, if met, would wipe out the deficit and leave some money in the transfer kitty. Given that Spalletti wants to bring in Ajax's talented young striker Arkadiusz Milik, Lyon centre-back Samuel Umtiti and Inter Milan's Marcelo Brozovic, Roma need to find some money -- and quickly.
The first step towards that was buying on-loan defender Antonio Rudiger from Stuttgart for €9m, with the aim of selling the German international this summer for around €25m. Meanwhile, Iago Falque, Adem Ljajic, Seydou Doumbia, Antonio Sanabria and Vasilis Torosidis are all up for sale.
Of those, 23-year-old Rudiger will be the biggest miss, as he struck a central defensive partnership with Kostas Manolas that grew in stature as the season went on. But his sale will help finance the €13m purchase of Stephan El Shaarawy from AC Milan -- which has to be completed by June 22, so can't be put off until after the FFP books balancing deadline -- while Roma are also struggling to buy left-back Lucas Digne from Paris Saint-Germain.
PSG want €16m for to make the on-loan Frenchman's move to Rome permanent, but Roma aren't willing to spend more than €11m, meaning that sporting director Walter Sabatini is eyeing Empoli left-back Mario Rui if the Ligue 1 champions continue with their intransigence.
Miralem Pjanic has become an important player for Roma but the time could be right to move on.
There's also no guarantee the sale of any or even all of the players listed above will generate enough for Spalletti's shopping list, and with the knee injury Edin Dzeko picked up on international duty making his sale less likely, Pjanic is the one player that could make a difference by leaving.
Would his departure be such a bad thing? In purely playing terms, it would be a big blow. The Bosnia & Herzegovina international was Serie A's joint assist leader alongside Paul Pogba with 12 last season, and he's also one of the game's best free kick takers.
Any club looking to win the game's top honours, as Pjanic said he wants to, should think twice before selling their best players, but Roma's hands are tied thanks to the buy-out clause. Luckily they have more than capable backup.
Radja Nainggolan, who has thrived under Spalletti, has no intention of leaving, while Kevin Strootman's confident return from his tortuous knee injury nightmare has given Roma back one of Europe's strongest midfielders. If Daniele De Rossi maintains his improved form, Spalletti still has a powerful midfield that would only be improved by Leandro Paredes, whose impressive performance on loan at Empoli showed that the Argentine is more than ready for Serie A. Should Roma sign 22-year-old Milik, who has scored 47 goals in 75 appearances for Ajax, Diego Perotti could happily slip back into a more conventional No.10 role.
Pjanic is 26 and has been at Roma for five years, arriving from Lyon for €11m. He is approaching the prime of his career and is hungry for trophies -- something that Roma can't guarantee him.
The buy-out clause means they can't decide whether to keep him or not, and the money they would bring in with his sale would help the club finance squad reinforcements and stave off UEFA. It might be time to let go.
Wojciech Szczesny’s permanent transfer from Arsenal to AS Roma
this summer may now be in doubt.
The Poland international is keen to leave the Emirates Stadium for
the Stadio Olimpico after spending this season on loan in the Italian capital.
Szczesny has largely impressed for Roma and the club have been
hopeful of keeping him, but Arsenal are seemingly reluctant to sell at this
stage.
The Gunners currently have Petr Cech and David Ospina as options
ahead of Szczesny, but reportedly only want to send the 26-year-old out on loan
again, according toCorriere dello Sport.
It remains to be seen if an agreement can be struck, and much
could hinge on thefuture of Ospina, who is also said to be unwilling to
remain a backup to Cech.
For a while it looked like Roma's Champions League Mission: Impossible at Real Madrid could have been downgraded to Mission: Thoroughly Doable. Luciano Spalletti's side arrived in the Spanish capital knowing that no team in the modern iteration of the competition had ever overcome a two-goal deficit from the home leg, but even after Edin Dzeko and Mohamed Salah spurned two fabulous opportunities with a quarter of Tuesday night's match gone, it looked
like Roma could do the unthinkable and win a tie that after a 2-0 defeat in Rome looked lost.
They didn't, of course. Cristiano Ronaldo and James Rodriguez ended the Last 16 tie definitively in four second half minutes after Roma had missed three more opportunities to cut Real's aggregate, and the Italians were left ruing what might had been, had Salah been blessed with a right foot instead of two left ones.
The Gazzetta dello Sport accurately called it "the art of messing up already scored goals," and there was something perversely impressive about just how bad Roma's finishing was on Tuesday night. No one could have been that surprised at off-form Dzeko slicing his near post shot wide in the 14th minute after being slipped in thanks to Stephan El Shaarawy's sly dummy, but after banging in six goals in his previous six appearances, Salah was the one player in the Roma team you'd want chances to fall to.
They did, in the 28th and 51st minutes, but each time the Egyptian had to trust in his non-existent right peg, and each time he sent his shots into the side netting. The second opportunity was the most glaring, right in front of Real Madrid goalkeeper Keylor Navas and with no one within yards of him, and had the chance fallen to his left he would have almost certainly made it seven in as many games and sparked the tie back into life.
Instead Ronaldo nipped in front of Kostas Manolas to tap in his 13th goal in eight Champions League games 13 minutes later, and just like that Madrid were in the quarterfinals. Roma had had two other good opportunities in the meantime -- Manolas and Alessandro Florenzi at least making Navas work with their drilled efforts -- but the tie was lost with that second Salah miss. The 4-0 aggregate scoreline may be an unfair reflection of the two matches, but Spalletti is right to be worried that the players could leave the Bernabeu with their head held high after that result -- "how far we have fallen" indeed.
The weekend brings Roma the more prosaic matter of struggling Udinese away in Serie A. Out of the Champions League for another year, now Roma have to think about getting straight back into it, and hope that if they do, they put up more of a fight than they did this time round.
Luciano Spalletti started his second reign at Roma in the same way that Rudi Garcia's ended; submerged with boos and whistles from a half-full Stadio Olimpico after a deeply disappointing home draw that leaves his team way off the pace in Serie A.
Roma's 1-1 draw with rock-bottom Hellas Verona was a distillation of every problem that has dogged Roma so far this season: from Edin Dzeko's chronic lack of form in front of goal, to uncertainty at the back that allowed the league's
worst side -- one that is yet to win a game this season -- way too many chances at goal.
Spalletti's team stay fifth but are now nine points behind league leaders Napoli and seven away from the second automatic Champions League slot, currently occupied by Juventus. With each week that passes by, Roma drift away from the leading pack.
Roma hit the post twice, first through Dzeko in the lead-up to Radja Nainggolan's neatly-taken opener five minutes before the break, then 10 minutes later through Mohamed Salah, who was unlucky to see his well-struck volley pushed onto the woodwork by Verona keeper Pierluigi Gollini.
However, Verona forward Ante Rebic, who had already forced Roma goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny into a fine save after 17 minutes, struck the inside of the post 50 minutes in, and the Pole also had to be at his best to tip away Artur Ionita's left-footed effort just two minutes before.
Roma's sluggish defending was summed up by Leandro Castan, who in his first start since late November clumsily chopped down Pawel Wszolek on the hour and allowed to Giampaolo Pazzini to score just his second of the season from the penalty spot.
Roma's wonky attacking, meanwhile, is personified in Dzeko, who after making the worst of a host of opportunities, capped his afternoon by fluffing the chance to win the match, somehow heading Miralem Pjanic's injury time corner over from just six yards out when completely unmarked.
Next Sunday, Roma have to travel to Juventus, who strolled to their 10th straight win at Udinese while Spalletti's side toiled against Verona. Spalletti has a lot of work to do if he wants to avoid an embarrassment.
