AS Roma heads into their second season with Garcia leading the way. Can he lead the side from Rome to the title? We preview their season.
AS Roma goes into this Serie A season knowing very well that this is their year to shine. Rudi Garcia has been superb since his arrival last season and in the course of one year, he has lifted the side from the capital to their highest ever league standing in recent years. Many though that Garcia would succumb to the pressure of handling a club of Roma’s stature, but once the season started, Roma just swept away everyone in their path. The departure of Luis Enrique and Zdenek Zeman left a fractured dressing room, which was rebuilt and made into one of the strongest competitors in Serie A in the matter of one season only.
Garcia led Roma to 10 consecutive victories last year and in those 10 games, Roma conceded only once. The meteoric start was not matched by similar performances for rest of the season and once Juventus got their mojo back, there was no stopping them. No team has been able to match Juventus’ extra terrestrial consistency in the league for the past three season and Roma proved no difference. Just when a competitor appeared on the horizon for their league title, Juventus ran away with it.
However, Garcia was indeed one of the best things to have happened to the league last year and it is entirely due to him that we see this Roma side today. In doing that, he has raised the expectations of the club and the fans manifold this time. From the team losing the Coppa Italia final to rivals Lazio and lying in sixth place to jump straight to the second place, Roma has exceeded everyone’s expectations. A second placed finish might not be celebrated with such vigor like last time. With the additional matches of the UEFA Champions League, Garcia sure has his hands full this time around.
Although they finished second last year, they showed enough potential to win the title at one point. Roma made few astute buys in their previous transfer window and they have repeated the same this year as well. While there has been many players coming in and going out, none so far has raised the noise decibel as the departure of Benatia to Bayern Munich. Part of the central defensive pair last season alongside Castan, Benatia was the rock at the back of Roma. Not only did he manage to keep more than 20 clean sheets for Roma, he also scored when it mattered. However, things turned sour after the season ended and talks of an improved contract arose.
Benatia was offered a below-par contract and from that moment onwards, things turned ugly. However, on the player’s part, he could have dealt
Other than the departure of Benatia, the other big transfer news for this summer was the arrival of Juan Iturbe from Verona. Roma has made quite a few astute buys in Ashley Cole, Urby Emanuelson and Seydou Keita. Hamstrung by the absence of Kevin Strootman till at least October, the move to bring in Keita was superb. Garcia’s Roma relies very heavily on their midfield and the absence of the Dutchman was surely to be felt very keenly. In Keita, they have someone with Champions League pedigree who can cover for any position in the midfield if the need arose. Other than Keita, they have Alessandro Florenzi, who can operate on the flanks. In Iturbe and Gervinho, who has stellar last season for Roma, they have two of the best wingers who can operate at a very high speed on the counter. One of Roma’s trademark moves last season was the speed at which they converted a defensive position to an attacking one, and that is something which will be seen this season too.
The biggest worry for Garcia will be his defensive setup. He now has as many as four defenders who has never played in a Roma shirt fighting for a place in the starting line-up and only two of them are proper center-backs. In all probability, Castan and Romagnoli will start as the central defensive pair for Roma and as the season progresses, Romagnoli might be replaced with Manolas, who arrived from Olympiacos. In Cole and Emanuelson, they have adequate cover at left-back while Maicon will look to own the right-back position.
The forward line remains more or less same but with Champions League returning to their fixture, squad depth will be more valued. Totti, the Roman general might be reserved for the European battles as Garcia might look towards Borriello, Destro and Ljajic for league and Coppa matches. All in all, Roma have spent considerably in this transfer window unlike the other Serie A clubs and with Conte now leaving Juventus in the very ‘able’ hands of Allegri, Roma and Garcia can realistically dream of lifting the Scudetto.
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