When De Rossi arrived to replace Jose Mourinho, Roma were ninth in Serie A, with little hope of qualifying for the Champions League next season. In the weeks since Mourinho’s departure, De Rossi has seemingly turned the club’s fortunes around, stunning critics and inviting a mountain of praise.
He has even been likened to Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp.
“Daniele is becoming Jurgen to me. A hallucination? No, an overlap full of meaning,” wrote Gazzetta dello Sport columnist Giancarlo Dotto.
Roma’s squad has delighted in a new-found tactical freedom. Dotto, like most in Italy, has been struck by the visceral joy De Rossi exudes on the sidelines: raw, explosive energy that has swept away the cobwebs of the depressing Mourinho footballing aesthetic. Roma are a club revived.
Hyperbolic perhaps? De Rossi has been in charge for nine games across all competitions – is this too small a sample size to merit such euphoria?
Time will tell whether the transformation is sustainable. But in those nine games, Roma have progressed to the next round of the Europa League by beating Feyenoord in an emotive penalty shootout and collected six wins out of seven in Serie A, losing only to an impressively strong Inter.
It’s also true that it has been an easy schedule for Roma, with them mostly facing teams in the bottom half. However, against those same teams, Mourinho only managed 11 points.
But the points are only half the story. Mourinho was not necessarily let go of because Roma were not winning enough, but because the club had turned into a depressed version of itself. The dressing room no longer looked joyous and united, with several players underperforming, while the endless battles with officials and the usual us-against-them rhetoric reportedly aggravated the ownership.
Mourinho, it must be noted, did create something special at Roma, reaching two consecutive European finals and winning the Europa Conference League. He consistently sold out the stadium and united a city that still mourns his departure.
Roma welcome Brighton to the Stadio Olimpico in the Europa League on Thursday, a fresh and significant test of the team’s new mettle.
