Roma find themselves in what feels like a unique situation for all the time I’ve written for Chiesa di Totti: they truly have their fate in their own hands. Thanks to the events of the thirty-seventh match day, the Giallorossi are tied on points for third place with A.C. Milan, and a win tomorrow against Hellas Verona will guarantee them a spot in next season’s Champions League. If they manage to pull victory from the jaws of defeat through this run of excellent form to close the season, a return
to the Champions League will have been a long time coming. It’s been eight years since the Giallorossi have played in Europe’s top-flight continental competition, and while they have consistently gone deep in the Europa League and won the inaugural Europa Conference League, there’s nothing quite like the caliber of club you play against in the Champions League—or the caliber of player you can attract to Roma with the promise of Champions League football.
Despite the overarching sense of positivity pervading Roma right now, if there is one thing Romanisti have learned over the past decade, it’s that nothing is ever handed over easily. Verona may be staring relegation in the face, but they are not likely to roll over and offer a ceremonial send-off to Roma’s Champions League ambitions. The Bentegodi has been an oddly cursed venue for the Giallorossi in recent years, as Roma have lost three of their last five trips there, including a maddening 3-2 defeat in 2024. Even this struggling Hellas side has shown signs of life lately, frustrating both Juventus and Inter in recent weeks while tightening up defensively.
Match Details
Date: May 24th
Kickoff: 18:45 CET/2:45 EDT
Venue: Stadio Bentegodi, Verona
Referee: Simone Sozza
That’s what makes tomorrow feel quintessentially Roma: one match, one vulnerable opponent, one clear path forward, but every reason in the world to feel nervous anyway. Still, this Roma side has earned the right to believe. After a spring surge that has seen them take points with remarkable consistency, including emphatic wins over Fiorentina and Parma, they enter the final day knowing that for once scoreboard-watching can wait. No permutations. No miracles required. Just ninety minutes to decide whether this season becomes another near-miss or the long-awaited return to Europe’s grandest stage. Eight years is long enough. Now Roma simply have to finish what they started.
What to Watch For
Koné’s Last Hurrah?
It’s not often Roma signs a player and almost immediately knows they’ve landed a star (Donyell Malen immediately springs to mind), but that’s exactly what happened with Manu Koné as well. From the opening weeks of his first season in the capital, the French midfielder has looked like the rare kind of talent that can bend matches to his will: shrugging off pressure, gliding through midfield traffic, and making impossible ball recoveries look almost routine. He has quickly become the heart of Roma’s midfield, the player who seems to drag the entire team forward whenever things begin to stall. As Koné himself said this week, “I know I can enter Roma’s history books.” If Roma clinches Champions League football on the final day, it would be hard to argue that he hasn’t already begun writing his chapter.
The cruel reality, of course, is that this may also be his goodbye. Roma’s familiar Financial Fair Play constraints still loom over every summer, and Koné’s meteoric rise has likely made him the club’s most valuable movable asset. Reports linking him to Europe’s financial heavyweights have only intensified as his profile has grown, and while Gasperini would surely love to build next season’s midfield around him, Roma may instead be forced to cash in. It’s the oldest and most painful story in modern football: find a gem, polish him into something brilliant, and then reluctantly hand him over to someone richer.
If that does happen, there would be something fitting about Koné’s final act being the one that pushes Roma back into the Champions League. No, that probably doesn’t mean he’ll score, because this is still Manu Koné we’re talking about, a man seemingly allergic to actually putting the ball in the net. Still, not every decisive performance needs a goal attached to it. One last midfield masterclass would be a great final reminder of what Roma briefly had in their hands at a minimum. If Sunday is indeed Koné’s last hurrah in giallorosso, sending Roma back to Europe’s biggest stage would be a pretty good way to be remembered.
Can Donyell Malen Finish His First Half-Season in Rome on a High Note?
For a player who only arrived in January, Donyell Malen has wasted absolutely no time making himself indispensable. The Dutch forward enters the final matchday with 13 Serie A goals, which is joint second in the league and tied with both Marcus Thuram and Anastasios Douvikas, while trailing only Lautaro Martínez’s 17. That alone would be an impressive achievement over a full campaign; doing it in half a season is borderline absurd. Knock on wood, of course, but it sure seems like Malen is the missing piece Roma spent years searching for: a direct, ruthless attacker capable of turning half-chances into goals and dragging the Giallorossi through matches that might otherwise have slipped away. In a season defined by uncertainty, his arrival has been one of the few things that immediately made sense.
Thanks in large part to Malen’s work, Champions League football is now ninety minutes away. But Roma may need Malen Magic from him one more time. Against a relegated Hellas Verona side with little left to play for beyond pride, the opportunity is obvious. Another goal, or maybe two, and Malen would not only all but book Roma’s return to Europe’s premier competition, but likely claim sole possession of second place in the Capocannoniere race. For someone who was only unpacking his bags at Trigoria four months ago, that would be a remarkable way to announce himself to Serie A as one of the league’s superstars.
It won’t be easy; even if they have nothing to play for, Hellas will still want to avoid being embarrassed, and small sides know how to play compactly when coming up against the giants of Italian football. It’s why Romanisti are always so frustrated after a minnow’s goalkeeper turns into Gigi Buffon for ninety minutes against Roma; they know that offense won’t save them, so defense must, and as a result, the chances are sometimes harder to find, even for superstars, than they are against the other big clubs of Italy and Europe. That hasn’t stopped Malen so far this season, so there should be optimism that the Dutchman can end the campaign exactly how he began it this January: by putting Roma on his back and driving them somewhere they haven’t been in far too long. If Manu Koné is the engine of this side, Malen is the finisher, and if Roma are finally going back to the Champions League, there’s a very good chance his right foot will be the reason why.
