The Sun Sets in Rome, a New Day Approaches
Roma is represented by the colors of the sun, but recently the club has been increasingly consumed by darkness. When legendary manager José Mourinho was appointed, he made Romanisti dream. During his tenure at the club, he has sparked a fiery passion and great confidence within the fanbase, of the likes which previously hadn’t been seen in many, many years. Nowadays the Olimpico is boiling with the emotions when Roma play, and Antonello Venditti’s “Roma, Roma” rings as loud as ever before kick-off. There have been competitive shortcomings in this period, but Mourinho’s strong character, and promise of at least some sort of success, has kept the man popular in the Italian capital… that is until now. Roma currently sit in 18th place in the Serie A, and for the first time in the approximate two years José Mourinho has spent as the manager of Roma, there is a widespread feeling of doubt regarding his ability to do his job. It is not universal, and this may all be completely forgotten within a few months, as Roma inevitably climb back up the table, but the point is that right now, José Mourinho is under great scrutiny, as is his team.
Previously, speculation around a future at Roma post-Mourinho was predicated on the possibility of the Portuguese manager taking on a new, more prestigious job. Now, his shortcomings as a tactician are instead becoming increasingly apparent. The problematic aspect of Roma’s current sporting project is that Mourinho originally won the fans over with his persona, and reputation: he was selling them a dream. When Mourinho was appointed, Roma had not won a major trophy in 13 years, and were about to be led by THE winning manager of the 21st century. Sure enough, he won Roma a trophy in his first season at Roma, and that’s when he won them over, seemingly for good. Mourinho has won Romanisti over to the extent that he hasn’t been under any significant scrutiny until now, despite Roma finishing sixth in both of his full seasons at the club so far. The Mourinho era at Roma has actually been highly frustrating and disappointing for the fans — from the uninspiring football, to the awful finishing, to the injury issues, to the inconsistent performances from the biggest names at the club, to the mediocre results domestically. The signs that Roma were actually in quite poor shape under Mourinho, were hidden in plain sight all along. But what did it matter if the Olimpico was rocking every week, and if the fans had gained a life-long memory in the form of their 2021–22 Europa Conference League win? I personally don’t think Roma have been going in the right sporting direction since appointing Mourinho, and this is largely due to his tactical style, but what I cannot deny is that Mourinho has had Roma fighting for trophies, and Romanisti seem as invested in the club as ever. Who am I to judge their sporting project, as a rival fan? I can say with great confidence that I think Roma are wasting their sporting potential with Mourinho as their manager, but what does it matter if the fans are satisfied? Ultimately, football is not about what happens on the pitch as much as it is about how it makes us feel.
I think it’s always important to consider that football can be viewed from both an emotional perspective, and a more objective perspective. For instance, Kylian Mbappé’s performance in the 2022 World Cup final may not be one of the best football performances of all time, but does that take away from how we felt about it in the moment? Occasionally, you just have to appreciate that the reason why we are invested in this sport in the first place, is that it evokes such raw, and profound emotions. Simultaneously, there is a space for both viewing football from a more emotional perspective, and for viewing it from a more objective perspective. In fact, football discourse (which can also be from an emotional point of view, of course) is also a significant reason for our love for the game, although it doesn’t compare to how we feel when we truly experience football. In some instances there may not be a right or wrong way to view the game from, and Roma’s current situation is a great example. So, with that being said, I do think it would be interesting to explore how Roma could rebuild following the departure of José Mourinho, whose contract expires next summer. I can appreciate what Mourinho has given Roma’s supporters, but from an objective sporting perspective, I think it’s time to move on, and I think Roma could have quite an exciting sporting project post-Mourinho. This article will begin to explore how Roma could go about a potential rebuild if they let José Mourinho’s contract expire next year.
Appointing a New Manager — A Battle of Two Models
It is only with the departure of José Mourinho that Roma can rebuild, and thus the replacement for Mourinho will also play an essential role in their project going forward. My idea of how Roma could rebuild is somewhat of a cliché nowadays. For me, Roma need to change their tactical identity, and that is not only due to the contemporary bias towards high-pressing, possession-based football. I, myself, think that the idealistic perception of these relatively vague ideas can be somewhat naive. However, in Roma’s case, it is something that has worked in the past. After scudetto-winning manager Fabio Capello, Roma’s most successful manager of this century is Luciano Spalletti. His first stint at the club lasted four years, from 2005–2009, and during this stint he was largely responsible for Roma becoming a perennial contender for the scudetto, with the club finishing second to Inter in each of these seasons, except for the final one. Roberto Mancini’s legendary Inter sides would ultimately prevent Spalletti from winning the scudetto with Roma, but Spalletti would get the better of Mancini in the Coppa Italia final twice. The 2008–09 season would see Spalletti sacked, but he would return to Roma in 2016–17. His second stint at Roma would largely be tainted by Francesco Totti’s lack of playing time in his final season at the club. Really, this is quite an unfair critique, especially considering Roma were a legitimate scudetto contender that would ultimately finish just four points behind eventual champions Juventus, despite having a considerably weaker squad. Of course, Totti is by far the greatest player in Roma’s history, so the frustration with his lack of involvement in his final season was completely understandable, but so was Spalletti’s choice not to include a 39–40 year-old in his regular rotation, as he needed all the margins he could get in order to beat both Juventus and Napoli to the scudetto. But what does all this matter anyway? Well, the point is, in my life as a football fan, Spalletti’s Roma in 2016–17 is the strongest Roma side I have seen, by quite a significant margin. Even a few years later, I think Paulo Fonseca did a fantastic job at Roma, and in the end he was sacked unfairly, which ended up being a huge mistake by Roma. Considering how well Spalletti did in his final season at Roma, and how well Fonseca did with such a weak squad, and such severe injury issues within his squad, I think a lot suggests that Roma need a more progressive manager.
So who should Roma appoint if they let Mourinho’s contract expire? In all honesty, no manager convinces me completely, but my favorite option is Thiago Motta. In reality, I have never actually been particularly impressed by Motta as a manager, and that’s including his stint at Bologna. What you can’t take away from Motta is that he has interesting tactical ideas, but as for how effective these ideas have been on the pitch, the results may suggest otherwise, but the answer is that they have noot been very effective at all. Starting from Thiago Motta’s arrival at Bologna on 12 September, Bologna ranked 14th in expected points last season (via Understat), and although the sample size is small and Bologna’s schedule has been difficult, we are yet to see a significant improvement in the level of performance this season. With that being said, what I think Roma should prioritize in the selection of their next manager, is tactical direction. Their current squad is actually not particularly optimized to their style of play — something which will be brought up in my next article. However, the appointment of a manager with a completely different style of play would require challenging adaptation, and when you also factor in the club’s financial situation, it becomes clear that the fruits of Roma’s new project would only arrive in the long-term. I suppose that’s what the aforementioned debate comes down to; a long-term project which aligns with the different trends of modern football may seem like the way to go, but at the end of the day you ultimately need to win something for it to matter. In the case of Roma’s sporting project — in the era of long-term projects that are largely centered around precise recruitment, youth development, and a modern, “progressive” style of play — they have been an example of the complete opposite. This is easy to criticize, but when you consider how much Mourinho has given Roma’s fanbase, the discussion becomes significantly more complex. This could all be seen as me repeating myself, but I would like to emphasize that I do have a clear stance in this debate (if you want to call it that), and I would like to explain my reasoning for it. The takeaway here is that, while Roma’s sporting project under Mourinho hasn’t been a success from a pure sporting perspective, it can retrospectively (well, the project is technically still ongoing, but for the purpose of this article…) be seen as a success, due to its incredible emotional impact on Roma’s fanbase. With that being said — under the assumption that this will be the final season of Roma’s current project, and they won’t win any major trophies — this previous assessment is only an assessment of the results of Roma’s sporting project, and results do largely come down to chance. It is a complex question, but I think the most important aspect to look at in a sporting project is how it relates to the conditions for success for the club, as opposed to what the results end up being when it’s all said and done. What is debatable is whether or not Mourinho’s time at Roma has been a success, but what I think is more clear is whether or not he provided Roma with the best possible conditions to succeed in the long-term. This is really all that matters when assessing a managerial situation. Roma can be thankful for what they have experienced with Mourinho, and still see that the club’s conditions for success under his management aren’t as good as they could be.
I apologize if this has all been somewhat convoluted, and has seen me repeat myself, but one of my key points in regards to Roma’s current sporting project, is the following: I think Roma made the wrong choice to appoint José Mourinho, and while I have doubts about whether or not they would be able to replicate the same material success in the short-term with a different manager, I think they would achieve even greater success in the long-term. As mentioned, Mourinho’s time at the club can still be seen as a success in retrospect, due to the experiences that he has given Romanisti, but I think the conditions for long-term success would have been greater with a different manager, and a different approach to the project as a whole — Mourinho is not the lone culprit. One argument in defense of Roma’s choice to appoint Mourinho is that he could be the type of manager a club like Roma needs. When you look at the success he’s achieved at Roma, it’s easy to say he’s “only” won a Europa Conference League and gotten to a Europa League final, but maybe that’s the only success Roma can achieve? More specifically, perhaps a club like Roma should prioritize success in knockout tournaments, in which case Mourinho is a very suitable manager. After all, it is in knockout tournaments where the bounce of the ball is the most decisive; in a 38-game season “luck”, “chance”, “margins”, or whatever you want to call it, plays a significantly smaller role than in knockout tournaments. Even then I would argue that Roma’s recruitment hasn’t even been optimized to success in knockout tournaments under Mourinho, but I guess that is a flawed claim, given Roma have been to a European final in each of Mourinho’s two full seasons at the club — something which has brought the club’s fanbase a tremendous amount of joy. In a way, history does support the notion that it is naive of Roma to aspire to compete for the scudetto every season — they have only ever won it thrice in their 96-year long existence. This is probably the most convincing argument for Roma rejecting the contemporary sporting project — it is worth adding that Inter, Milan, and Juventus combined have won roughly 61.7% of the scudetti in Serie A history, and 90.7% this century (starting from the 2000–01 season). Despite the latter statistic, however, the reason why I disagree with the notion that it’s unrealistic for Roma to dream of perennially fighting for the scudetto, is that the current climate of Serie A allows for essentially any of the biggest clubs in Italy to win the scudetto. You know, it’s funny how it all works out: it’s easy to say that Mourinho has given more to Roma in his term at the club, than Luciano Spalletti did in his second stint at the club, but who remembers last season of Serie A? You know who won the scudetto last season? It wasn’t Inter, it wasn’t Milan, and it definitely wasn’t Juventus. It was Napoli, and who was their manager? Of course, it was none other than Luciano Spalletti himself. On top of that it was not just a one-off season — Napoli had been extremely close to winning the scudetto in previous seasons, has consistently played in the Champions League for over a decade, and has even won silverware prior to the 2022–23 scudetto, with three Coppe Italia, and one Supercoppa Italiana. Perhaps even more importantly, if we want to measure how successful Roma’s sporting project with Mourinho has been based on how it has impacted the supporters, it is only right that the same criteria applies to Napoli. In that case, even prior to their third scudetto, Napoletani have been left euphoric over some of their competitive triumphs, and have truly felt alive since Aurelio De Laurentiis’ arrival, even when they haven’t been winning trophies. Going back to the point of the collective dominance of Juventus, Inter, and Milan making it seem unrealistic for clubs like Roma to succeed, it may not be realistic for Roma to compete in the same way any of those clubs can, but is that what it’s all about anyway? Again, if satisfying the fans is what matters, not only does it not matter how big of an achievement a Europa Conference League is, but it also means that winning trophies is not even a necessity to begin with. Romanisti may not want to admit it, and they may not even recognize it, but Roma should ideally be like Napoli. Napoli’s sporting project since Aurelio De Laurentiis bought the club in 2004, is the model for a club like Roma. Roma could have been Napoli if their club had been run differently. However, in the future, Roma can still become what Napoli have been for over a decade now.
So, that was quite a long tangent. Something about Thiago Motta? Well, to wrap up my reasoning for why Roma should appoint Thiago Motta next summer, I’ve explained why I believe in the model of the modern sporting project, and I think the manager plays a huge role in that model, with Motta ultimately suiting the profile. Of course it’s not all so simple — Napoli were ultimately able to get over the hump and finally win the scudetto because they found the perfect manager: Luciano Spalletti. Will Thiago Motta be that guy for Roma? I don’t know, I have some doubts, but again: he is at least the right profile, and he would begin a long-term process which would likely lead Roma to a scudetto eventually. Even on the long journey to the scudetto, Romanisti would make a lot of incredible memories. To put it briefly: Roma need to begin by following the model, and even if Thiago Motta is not good enough to take them to their end goal, he does at least suit the model; it’s a start. Mourinho has given Romanisti unforgettable memories, but you can feel Roma’s sporting project slowly turn stale, and Romanisti slowly lose confidence in the club’s sporting direction. In the short-term, Romanisti have certainly enjoyed themselves under Mourinho, but in the long-term it should only get worse if it continues like this. There is another way — a way that will allow for greater heights, and a way that is sustainable. There is a way to make Romanisti’s euphoria last.
