Destro has had a very good game despite not scoring. Totti has been outstanding yet again today, he’s in the best shape he has been in for the last five seasons or so.
Tellingly De Rossi and Osvaldo have not been used off the bench. Perrotta and Marquinho actually brought on ahead of De Rossi.
Our second clean sheet of the season after our 3-0 win in Cagliari and our first home win of the season. Our title charge is very much back on. Totti was perfect today, controlled the game.
great stuff today
missing the banter i have with the lads at work about AS Roma is the thing I miss most about Ireland
Nice article on Florenzi.
[font=verdana][size=1]Flourishing Florenzi on Italy radar[/size][/font][font=verdana][size=3]
He still lives with his parents, he drives a battered car and he earned 200 times less than Daniele De Rossi before signing a new deal. Antonio Labbatelooks at Roma’s Alessandro Florenzi.
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Less than a year ago, Alessandro Florenzi was playing his football in Serie B with Crotone. Earlier this month, he put pen to paper on a new contract at Roma that is understood to include a bonus should he be included in Italy’s 2014 World Cup squad.
That would be some achievement for a 21-year-old who is presently uncapped at full international level and who has only made seven Serie A appearances in his brief career to date. However, being named in the Azzurrisquad by a tactician who is actively considering youth – outside of the goalkeeping slots – is not as far fetched as it may initially seem. And the clause, even if it is not activated, underlines the status of his current potential.
The midfielder, the latest in a long line of Roman-born players to graduate through the youth ranks at Trigoria and into the first team, has consistently been making the right sort of headlines in a start to the season which has been far from straight forward for Zdenek Zeman’s troops.
Roma signed Florenzi as an 11-year-old from Lodigiani, the same club who delivered them Francesco Totti. He cost the outfit around €8,000, but there was a time when there were doubts whether he would make the grade. Starting life as an attacker, there were fears that he wasn’t physically big enough to turn his promise into reality. But Bruno Conti, the club’s youth sector supremo, thought the player’s apparent physical limitations were actually his biggest asset.
“He’s small, slender, but he bites on the pitch, he’s an animal,” Conti says with a sense of pride. “At the start there were those who thought he’d go nowhere, but people said the same things about me. I see the same desire in his eyes that I had. I was blooded on loan at Genoa, he affirmed himself atCrotone. These are constructive experiences for players.”
Florenzi, who was later used as a midfielder by Andrea Stramaccioni and Alberto De Rossi in the capital club’s youth teams, was one of Serie B’s star performers last term. And his displays, plus his 11 goals, were not lost onZeman – then in charge of Second Division outfit Pescara – or the Giallorossiwho had to pay €1.25m to get him back at the Olimpico.
Zeman’s infamous gradoni – a gruelling low-tech terrace step workout – held no fear for the Under-21 international during pre-season and once the campaign got under way proper the Czech, who ignores age, threw him in at the deep end. Florenzi didn’t drown. Limited to a salary of around €30,000 a year, the Federal minimum wage, he rewarded his Coach by consistently proving to be one of their best performers. A new deal worth €600,000 a season was subsequently agreed.
“It won’t change him,” Conti added. “The other day I saw him arrive atTrigoria in a ramshackle car, with a cuddly toy that his girlfriend gave to him hanging on the inside of it. I complimented him for that, as he is evidently coping well with his moment of glory. He’s not the kind of guy who’ll get big-headed. I’m not worried because he’ll remain humble.”
Florenzi, who scored for the Under-21s in the 3-2 win against Sweden last night, gives that impression from the way he speaks. Understandably at thecentre of attention, he’s ambitious but also realistic. He seems well aware that his fine 2012-13 so far is not a point of arrival, it is one of departure which he’s hoping will include a stop over at Brazil 2014.
[font=verdana][size=3]“Zeman[/size][/font][font=verdana][size=3] is a Coach who makes us run and run,” noted the youngster, who still lives with his parents at [/size][/font][font=verdana][size=3]Vitinia[/size][/font][font=verdana][size=3]. “I have absolutely no problem with the Coach. [/size][/font][font=verdana][size=3]Zeman[/size][/font][font=verdana][size=3] gets the best out of my qualities, in fact he actually gets me to deliver even more than I am capable of. He’s teaching me so many things and he’ll help me get into the national side.”[/size][/font]
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Destro and Burdisso are out tonight so it’s likely that Osvaldo will return to the side, it will be interesting to see if Daniele is restored to the side however. I’d worry about us defensively tonight, apparently Castan has been struggling with an injury picked up in training and I’d also worry about Marquinhos, who at just 18 will be up against two very robust strikers in Immobile and Borriello.
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Genoa: 1 Frey; 21 Canini, 3 Bovo, 13 Antonelli, 5 Granqvist; 24 Moretti, 11 Jankovic, 33 Kucka, 14 Seymour; 22 Borriello, 19 Jorquera[/size][/font]
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Genoa bench: 30 Tzorvas, 32 Donnaruma, 31 Samprisi, 91 Bertolacci, 10 Merkel, 28 Tozser, 17 Immobile, 9 Melazzi, 18 Piscitella[/size][/font]
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Roma: 24 Stekelenburg; 23 Piris, 3 Marquinhos, 5 Castan, 42 Balzaretti; 16 De Rossi, 77 Tachtsidis, 48 Florenzi; 8 Lamela, 9 Osvaldo, 10 Totti[/size][/font]
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Roma bench: 13 Goicoechea, 55 Svdkauskas, 11 Taddei, 46 Romagnoli, 4 Bradley, 7 Marquinho, 15 Pjanic, 20 Perrotta, 17 Lopez[/size][/font]
Kucka with a good goal to give Genoa the lead. 1-0.
2-0 Genoa, all started off from a terrible defensive header by Marquinhos.
We’ll win this yet lads.
Florenzi very unlucky with a fabulous effort there.
Capitano!
Totti is now in outright third position in the all time Serie A top scorers list. Gunnar Nordahl - he’s coming to get you. :guns:
Frey makes a good save from Lamela, we are all over them.
Roma are the footballing equivalent of a boxer that believes he must win by KO only. Great to watch.
What a move that was, would have been goal of the season easily. We are simply irresistible in attack. To quote Martin O’Neill “just wave after wave after wave of attack”.
2-2.
Pablo!!!
Super Pablo Osvaldo!!!
Mr. Zeman. :wub:
Totti has a stonewaller turned down.