Football Season Guide

In the past two seasons, Roma always ended up as runners up but in two completely different ways. While in the first campaign they had been spectacular and they had been fighting for the Scudetto until the final months, in the second they limited themselves to being very solid defensively, while falling into an incredible offensive crisis that lasted for months. It is just due to their contenders’ poorness that they ended up obtaining a direct qualification to the Champions League. Coach Garcia, the responsible for such results, aims at contending for the main prize this time around and, for such reason, the management invested mainly in new forwards. After all, the supporters have to come to terms with the fact that Totti is close to the end of his career and Roma need a valid replacement up-front. Thus, money was invested in the arrival of Iago Falque and Salah, who had fantastic campaigns with Genoa and Fiorentina respectively. In the past campaign, Roma mostly needed a centre-forward, as Doumbia was simply unfit for the league and logically returned to CSKA Moscow, and so they also hired Dzeko, in need of a redemption from the last poor season with Manchester City. A new left-back is also due to arrive, Digne from Paris Saint Germain, while Szczesny should represent a valid alternative to an ageing De Sanctis. Apart from Holebas and Astori, who played a lot in the past campaign, and Yanga-Mbiwa, who is about to join Olympique Lyonnais, no relevant players really left the club. The feeling is that, while they certainly are stronger offensively, the Wolves are still lacking some quality defensively. With De Sanctis in goals, Florenzi should be acting at right-back, Digne on the left, Manolas and, hopefully, fully-recovered Castan in the heart of the defence. Nainggolan, De Rossi, Pjanic should be competing together with also-recovered Strootman and Keita for the three places in the middle of the park. In the attack, Iago Falque, Salah, Iturbe abd Gervinho should be supporting Dzeko or Ljajic, while Destro could end up being sold anytime soon.