Another midweek, another game. There really is no let up in the schedule right now and a Tuesday night Serie A clash with Cagliari awaits Roma this time around.
Fresh from Saturday’s 3-3 draw with Napoli – or maybe not so fresh, come to think of it; that was the kind of game a team can expend so much energy in – Roma are back on home turf for match number nine of their league campaign.
Cagliari are the visitors making the trip from Sardinia, looking to bounce back from a 2-0 loss to Bologna on Saturday.
In fact, despite making a bright start to the season at first, Cagliari last tasted victory in their last match before the international break – although they did gain a point against Juventus in their first game back.
Match Details
Date: October 27th
Kickoff: 20:45 CET/3:45 EDT
Venue: Stadio Olimpico, Roma
Referee: Ermanno Feliciani
There was one win apiece for Roma and Cagliari when they went head to head last season, with Donyell Malen scoring his first two goals at the Olimpico to seal a 2-0 win most recently in February. This new attacker looked pretty sharp, hey? We know by now it was no anomaly.
Malen goes into this game looking to end an unprecedented run of three Serie A appearances without scoring, although he has scored three Champions League goals across two games in between.
Whether he starts or not is up for question, though, with Gian Piero Gasperini unafraid to rotate his troops. You can’t blame him given the short turnaround between games at the moment.
“I’ll decide on the team tomorrow but there probably will be a few changes,” Gasperini said at his presser. “We’ll bear our opponents in mind too. We have a squad that enables us to switch things up when we need to, during the game as well.”
Having as many injuries to key players as Roma have had to contend with does kind of limit how much you can rotate, though. On the plus side, Gasperini said he’s “optimistic” of having Paulo Dybala back in the matchday squad.
Roma might have the luxury of not having to rush Dybala back in if Matías Soulé can keep up the form he showed against Napoli.
“He produced a stunning performance the other night and he’d been playing well in the games before that too,” enthused Gasperini. “Sometimes we forget he’s still young, just 23. At his age a footballer has plenty of room for improvement in every area so he can become an even better player. That’s what he’s shown so far this season.
“He’s also doing it in different positions: he can play not just on the right, but also on the left and cover the whole flank. The other night he was playing in the hole at one point, he scored a goal and did other great things. He’s become more mature and more confident in his game. He loses the ball a lot less than he did in the past too, but there are other areas he still needs to work on.”
Sounds like a firm vote of confidence from the coach that the media had us believe wanted rid of Soulé in the summer.
One player there’s even more certainty over the future of is Emanuele Lulli, with the wing-back ready to play for the first time since signing his new, five-year contract this week.
But for every academy product that makes it, there’s one that gets away. Case in point: Alessandro Romano, who’ll be back on Tuesday night. The midfielder’s stock has skyrocketed since his move to Cagliari and he already looks like someone Roma could regret letting go of. If he starts, he could well have a point to prove.
But not since February 2013 have Roma lost a home game against Cagliari, so they’ll be looking to extend their unbeaten start to this Serie A season to nine games. If they can, it’d be their longest run without tasting defeat at the start of a season since that 2013-14 run under Rudi Garcia.
