Football Season Guide

The past season, the first one with coach Eusebio Di Francesco in charge, was an extremely good one for Roma. Not only they finished in the third place in Serie A, holding the next-to-best defence of the league, having conceded just 28 goals, but they also offered themselves the first Champions League semifinals in 35 years. And they might have some reasons for regretting not making it to the final, considering how things went away at Liverpool. They were certainly expected to start building from what good done last season but they had to make some relevant changes during the summer. First of all, all their goalkeepers left: Alisson went to Liverpool for a massive amount of cash, Lukas Skorupski was traded to Bologna and Bogdan Lobont retired. Robin Olsen, arriving from FK Copenhagen, will be the new man between the posts and this might be a risky decision, while Antonio Mirante, who arrived from Bologna, and Daniel Fuzato, from Palmeiras, will be his back-ups. Radja Nainggolan left a big hole in the midfield and Roma management tried to fill that hole with Javier Pastore, returning to Italy after several years at Paris Saint Germain, and Bryan Cristante, who had two outstanding seasons at Atalanta. They are two potentially valid options for Di Francesco but they lack the personality and fighting will the Belgian had. Ivan Marcano, from Porto, will be expected to earn himself some playing time in the heart of the defence such as William Bianda, from Racing Club de Lens. Davide Santon, who had a mixed last season at Inter, could see the starting eleven as a full-back, especially considering that Bruno Peres returned to Brazil. In the past campaign, Roma depended excessively on Edin Dzeko for their goals as Patrick Schick found the way to the net too late in the spring. The promising Justin Kluivert, who had a positive campaign at Ajax, could be preferred to the Czech up-front. More goals will also be expected by Cengiz Under, who impressed a lot when he became a protagonist in the second part of the campaign. A lot could also be expected by the young Croatian Ante Coric, who should spend a lot of time on the bench in the initial months of the campaign, though.