Should this thread be made a sticky?
There’s no point in making it a sticky. This thread is so naturally popular that it will always remain in the upper echelons of page 1.
Just reading Gazzetta there and I note that they make Totti the best player in Serie A over the past 20 years via a combination of statistics and individual match ratings. He’s scored over 100 league goals since he turned 30! Incredible!
Absolutely staggering!! Like a good wine. Shame the great man is going to miss our next couple of games.
Indeed. He’s going to be out for 10-14 days with a slight hamstring strain.
I’d still expect us to be top of the league when he returns.
[SIZE=6]Roma 2-0 Napoli: Pjanic punishes Napoli after two Cannavaro fouls[/SIZE]
October 21, 2013
The starting line-up - both Totti and Britos had to depart before half-time
Roma still have a 100% record in Serie A, and extended their gap over second-placed Napoli to five points.
Rudi Garcia changed both his full-backs – Federico Balzaretti was suspended so Dodo played at left-back, with Maicon back in for Vasilis Torosidis.
Rafael Benitez was unable to use Gonzalo Higuain from the start, so Goran Pandev started upfront. The absence of Juan Zuniga meant Giandomenico Mesto played at left-back.
Roma ran out winners, but this game could have gone either way – Napoli had plenty of chances at 0-0.
Early midfield battle
The start of the contest was very fast-paced, with both sides trying to close down quickly in midfield. In particular, the battle between the central midfield duos: Kevin Strootman and Miralem Pjanic against Gokhan Inler and Valon Behrami, gave none of the quartet much time on the ball.
It really seemed like a two-against-two battle at some points, because Daniele De Rossi continues to play a very deep role, almost as a third centre-back at times. He made some crucial interventions inside his own penalty area, justifying his defensive-minded role, and he also managed to shut Marek Hamsik out of the game. The Slovakian played as more of a support striker than a number ten, and rarely offered the two central midfielders a simple forward pass.
Roma create chances
As the first half continued, it became increasingly obvious that Roma simply had better technical quality in this zone, with Strootman keeping possession reliably and Pjanic playing a more attacking role. Whereas Roma seemed able to play around Napoli’s central midfielders, the away side struggled to get the ball past the midfield press, and often conceded possession unnecessarily in deep positions.
Roma were also dominating the midfield because of Francesco Totti’s deep positioning – he dropped into clever positions to form a triangle around Napoli’s two holders, and tempted the centre-backs out from the back. The game’s first clear-cut chance, for Gervinho, came after two big features of Roma’s play: (a) high pressing to win the ball quickly, and (b) Totti dropping deep to drag Napoli’s defence out of shape.
The star performer, however, was Pjanic – not for his two goals, but for his positive distribution and for connecting midfield and attack – this quality was particularly obvious as Hamsik was quiet throughout.
Dodo v Callejon and through-balls
The most interesting individual battle of the game was in Roma’s left-back zone, where the Brazilian Dodo played a very aggressive, committed role – charging forward whenever possible, and storming into tackles extremely quickly. Whereas Maicon started the game quite cautiously, Dodo provided an outlet on the left when Roma were attacking.
However, his aggressiveness also made him Roma’s weak link defensively, and on three separate occasions Jose Callejon wasted good situations. First, he miscontrolled a delicious dinked pass in behind the defence from Lorenzo Insigne, then he shot poorly after another good pass from Inler, and finally he misplaced a pass when Christian Maggio had run forward to create a 2 v 1. Better end product from the Spanish winger, and Napoli could have won the game via this zone.
The fact two of those chances came from through-balls also suggested Roma weren’t particularly compact at times, particularly in wider zones when the two midfielders pressed. Insigne kept darting inside into spaces between the lines, and sent an excellent through-ball for Pandev to spring the offside trap – he had a one-on-one with Morgan De Sanctis, who half-saved and was thankful De Rossi was on hand to clear off the line.
Substitutions
Eventually, the game was decided after injuries to key players. Totti had to depart midway through the first half, and although Marco Borriello is a completely different forward – an old-school number nine who stays in the penalty box – Roma adapted extremely well to his presence on the pitch. Their passes were longer, certainly, but Borriello played with his back to goal and tried to link with the onrushing midfielders, and was therefore almost playing the Totti role, albeit much higher up the pitch.
Napoli lost their left-sided centre-back, Miguel Britos, just before the interval. Although Paolo Cannavaro is a solid defender, remains Napoli’s captain and played at the back for years without looking out of his depth, he had a nightmare in this contest. He seemed either unprepared physically or troubled by Napoli’s back four, having been accustomed to playing in the centre of a three-man defence.
Put simply, Cannavaro’s fouls decided the game – seconds after coming on, he brought down Gervinho after one of the Ivorian’s direct dribbles, with Pjanic converting the free-kick. Midway through the second half, he brought down Borriello in the penalty box, and Pjanic scored his second from the spot. Cannavaro was shown a yellow card for each foul – and therefore not only had his transgressions cost Napoli two goals, they also meant Benitez’s side were down to ten men, and unable to get back into the game. The fact Cannavaro’s dismissal, and the second goal, came just after Higuain was introduced will have been particularly frustrating for the away side.
Conclusion
The first 25 minutes was extremely interesting, with a variety of interesting topics – the midfield pressing, Napoli’s through-balls, Dodo versus Callejon in an open, entertaining game. Napoli had enough chances to consider themselves unfortunate to have lost this contest, and with a fully fit Higuain, they might have fared better.
Neither manager would have predicted a Borriello versus Cannavaro battle being so crucial, and ultimately the latter’s rash challenges decided the contest
Great article here about the 1983 Scudetto winning side…
http://www.oldschoolpanini.com/2013/10/las-roma-1982-83-du-baron-liddas.html
Borriello and Ljajic for the injured Totti and Gervinho. A tough game today, Udinese haven’t lost at home in Serie A in over a year. And we don’t have a great record there, aside from Totti’s last gasp winner in 2011. I won’t be around for the game so will be relying on updates from you guys.
Sensational win today given the circumstances. Thanks for the updates, lads.
Roma relased an update on Francesco Totti’s hamstring injury earlier. They report that the scan showed good improvement and they’ll have a further update in 1 week. He’ll continue treatment in the meantime.
@chewy louie - please post up the you tube video of Carlo Zampa calling Bradley’s winner yesterday. “Lex Luther! Lex Luther! Lex Luther!”
Chievo at home on Thursday night. Rudi Garcia will be speaking to the media tomorrow morning at Trigoria.
[SIZE=6][U]Player Focus: Roma Needn’t Pjanic With The Form Miralem’s In[/U] [/SIZE]
by [James Horncastle](‘http://www.thefreekick.com/Blog?author=James Horncastle’) at Thursday, Oct 31 2013 11:30
http://164.177.157.12/img/blog/2013%2F10%2FPjanicHeader.jpg
With the first day of pre-season training completed, [U]Miralem Pjanic[/U] got into his car and prepared to drive to his house on the coast just outside of Rome. As he pulled out of the gates at Trigoria, his vehicle was surrounded. There were angry ultras on both sides. “Go on! Get out! Leave!” they cried among many other unprintable expletives, the irony being that they were holding him up.
What had Pjanic done to incur their wrath? Either on ReteOro, Radio Testa Cio, TeleRoma 56, CentroSuonoSport - you get the picture; one of the many stations that talk Roma 24/7 - or in the local edition of Il Corriere dello Sport, the ultras had found out about an interview he’d given back in Bosnia after the Coppa Italia final in May in which he’d supposedly said that while losing to bitter rivals Lazio pained him deeply he was “happy” that his compatriot Senad Lulic had scored the goal that won it for them.
Pjanic didn’t say that exactly. Roma posted a clarification on his behalf on their official Twitter page. It turned out that he’d said it “hurt less to concede a goal from an international teammate.” But by then no one cared for nuance. Roma’s ultras were enraged. If there was any consolation for Pjanic, it was that they wanted Dani Osvaldo out of the club more. Even ‘one of their own,’ Daniele De Rossi was a persona non grata.
On getting home, Pjanic could have called his agent Michael Becker and his father Fahrudin and said: “I’ve had enough. Find me another club.” He’d been inexplicably marginalised by Zdenek Zeman at times during the season and now this. Reasons for starting afresh elsewhere weren’t lacking. Roma’s general manager Franco Baldini, who’d answered the ultras’ calls for him to resign in the aftermath of the Coppa Italia final defeat and then taken up a position at Tottenham, offered a way out. Or so the papers claimed.
Spurs’ interest in Pjanic was longstanding. “Come with me,” you can imagine Baldini saying. “London’s great. You won’t have fans threatening you outside our Enfield training ground.” But Pjanic didn’t want to go. “I can assure you that I never once thought about leaving,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport’s Saturday supplement Sportweek.
[U]Roma’s[/U] new coach Rudi Garcia didn’t want him gone either. The former Le Mans and Lille tactician had observed Pjanic come through at Metz, making his debut as a 17-year-old against Paris Saint-Germain on August 18, 2007, and then be chosen as the successor to Juninho Pernambucano at Lyon within a year of that appearance. Needless to say he liked what he saw and aside from his obvious talent, the presence of another French-speaker in the dressing room would be useful to help get his message across while he mastered Italian.
With that in mind, you could perhaps understand why, should it have ever been put to Garcia that it was Pjanic or Erik Lamela, which one would he keep, he’d choose the former and back the club in selling the latter to Spurs, a decision that’d suit Roma considering the money Coco would fetch.
http://164.177.157.12/img/blog/2013%2F10%2FPjanic.jpg
For any player, knowing that they’re appreciated by the coach goes a long way. In Pjanic’s case, it was restorative. But there was another emotion at play here. Like many of his other teammates, he also felt a need to redeem himself after last season too. “Considering what I’m like perhaps I don’t show it, but my biggest wish was to start over again in a hurry and say to everyone: ‘Hey, Miralem Pjanic is happy to be here and will always give the maximum for whoever has invested in him’.”
Roma invested €11m two years ago and, while he’s had his moments in that time, Pjanic is now looking worth every penny and much, much more. It’s enough to think of the lob against Hellas, one of the goals of the season so far in Serie A and how he stepped up to the plate against Napoli, scoring a free-kick and a penalty at delicate moments for his team following injuries to Francesco Totti and then Gervinho.
That was a huge performance. “He’s Pjanic, but he seems like Tottic,” wrote La Gazzetta dello Sport to illustrate how the absence of the captain wasn’t felt, not with him pulling the strings ahead of De Rossi and Kevin Strootman.
He’s a remarkably understated playmaker. Only Antonio Cassano (25) has executed more key passes from open play than Pjanic (20) in Serie A this season. Everything about him is neat and precise. Pjanic has played more accurate passes in the opposition half (277) than any Roma player and only Cassano (6), Pirlo and [U]Totti[/U] (both 4) have played more accurate through balls than the 23-year-old (3).
Like a Missoni designer, he threads and he weaves. Only Gervinho (64.5%) has a better dribble success than Pjanic (62.1%) in this Roma team. Italians call this kind of player ‘veneziano’; as so good are they at keeping the ball it’s as if they grew up playing along Venice’s canals where you need great control to stop it from falling into the water.
Linked with Manchester United in La Gazzetta this week, who claim contact has been made through an intermediary, Mehmed Bazarevic, with a view to making a €30m bid - ask yourself where he’d fit in given Wayne Rooney is keeping out Shinji Kagawa in his position? - Roma are said to be preparing a new contract offer that will extend his current contract, due to expire in two years’ time, to 2018 and raise his pay to €2.8m a year, net. But there’s no hurry: no need to Pjanic.
Instead it’s a time in his career to sit at that café he so loves in Piazza di Spagna and savour the moment. The last month will be one Pjanic never forgets: nine consecutive wins in Serie A with Roma, a record-equalling start to a season, and qualifying for the World Cup with Bosnia for the first time in their history. He’s in the form of his life. Conversant in six languages, it’s a wonder people don’t add a seventh; after all, the one Pjanic is most fluent in remains football and he speaks in poetry, not prose.
Lads, I have a TFK AFC match tonight in Sandymount Park (kick-off 8pm) so I’ll be relying on you chaps for match updates later. One of the ultras will be following this thread and will be keeping me informed of events in Rome via hand signals. Please do you duty, @chewy louie[/USER], @[USER=141]Mullach Ide[/USER], @[USER=1074]Sandymount Red et al.
Dodó and Marquinho both start for Roma tonight
Team
De Sanctis; Torosidis, Benatia, Castan, Dodò; Pjanic, De Rossi, Strootman; Ljajic, Borriello, Marquinho
Subs:
Lobont, Skorupski, Burdisso, Romagnoli, Jedvaj, Balzaretti, Florenzi, Bradley, Taddei, Ricci, Caprari, Di Mariano.
No problem gaffer. Beside myself with excitement.