Rudi can fail
Successive defeats mean something has to change at Roma, and Federico Martone says it’s the Coach or the sporting director.
A week is a long time in football, this time last week Rudi Garcia was still the perennial survivor -three seasons is an awful long time in calcio - fast forward to today, and the question is now: can Garcia survive losing ten goals in a week?
When rival fans take to mocking up schadenfreude yellow and red flags to impose on social-media profile pics you realise that the narrative has changed, and writers start to dust down those turgid 'Rome is burning' puns. In Rudi Garcia's first season he simply looked the part; tactically, motivationally and in terms of intangibles, it all stacked up onto his his already impressive work in France. He was the last of the famous international playboys, a media darling, and were it not for the pesky, belligerent, dogmatic and amazingly ruthless Antonio Conte, Rudi would have gotten away with the gold too!
Since victory in the recent Rome derby, a downward spiral commenced and it was punctuated with a capricious Catalan cataclysm. Atalanta were waiting to feed on their carcasses and now we view any progress Garcia's side had made with suspicion and doubt. In truth, Roma's European record has been as dodgy as Francesco Totti on a spelling test. 'Top teams' cannot be repeatedly losing European games by five, six and seven a game. As much as we purists hate terms like 'corporate image' and 'club brand’, talk, the North American investors at Roma certainly will certainly take such things into account. That said, The Italian game is often at it's best when it shuns the corporate veneer that the Champions League and English Premier League constantly aspires to project. The homogenisation of the game is double-edged and even harmful to this tribal sport. Calcio should not be reduced to just shiny entertainment. Men like 'The Divine Leader' Silvio Berlusconi, the perennially politically incorrect Claudio Lotito, and the certifiable Maurizio Zamparini infuriate their club fanbases at times, but they carry with them many of the magic calcio beans that keep us hooked.
Distinct parallels with last season are emerging for Roma. After conceding seven goals to Bayern Munich they dropped into the Europa League where they were embarrassed once more by an average Fiorentina side and scrambled, somewhat fortuitously, to an echoey distant second place. With the League looking much more competitive this season, there is every chance conceding almost three goals a game will see them end up like the top-heavy, fragmented Napoli side of last season that missed the Champions League spots.
Sporting director Walter Sabatini's last two transfer windows can be considered as the root cause of this malaise. They involved Roma swapping a goal-a-game striker in Mattia Destro for a fringe Cagliari forward, with a similar strike rate to Juventus defender Leo Bonucci in the shape of Victor Ibarbo. Sabatini did further bolster Roma's attacking options, but the core of the director's shoddy work was his negligence in strengthening the ramshackle Roma defence. Less than a week before the start of the season Roma had left themselves with four registered senior defenders and not enough young Italians to fill the homegrown quota. The late, indiscriminate scramble got them Lucas Digne but no-one else worthy of the jersey. Over the course of a season playing Alessandro Florenzi and Daniele De Rossi in a back four is very high-risk. The image of these local heroes as willing soldiers has been confused with the pragmatic undertaking of planning an organised defence. Romanisti are guilty of mythologising their input and actual roles (they are midfielders), and they were always in danger of part sabotaging the club's season.
Maicon is a case example of the lunatics taking over the asylum of Roma's defence. A thoroughly endearing big fellow, It appears Maicon now just goes on a football pitch to amuse himself, to attain a general buzz and not to execute any specific tactical plan. With an ever-expanding backside (it can now actually be seen on Google earth) it takes Maicon several minutes to mince back into position after one of his increasingly rare power runs.
Sabatini is buying the players, the rank unprofessionalism of Wojciech Szczesny - reportedly dropped for the Atalanta match after smoking after the Barcelona defeat - magnifies the glaring mistakes being made in sourcing the right kind of men Roma need. Rudi Garcia should delve into the Antonio Conte playbook and start protecting his damaged reputation as one of these two surely must exit the Colosseum.
Roma's current motley crew of man-child defenders could do well to look to young Gianluigi Donnarumma - who in fairness looks old enough to be Florenzi's Dad. At just 16-years-old, the Milan goalkeeper is taking the responsibility of the loneliest, most unforgiving position on the park and never once hiding.
The same cannot be said for some Roma players.
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