Roma’s 2024 had opened with a bitter defeat in a Coppa Italia derby against Lazio: it had been the prelude to a series of unfortunate events, from Mourinho’s exoneration to De Rossi’s first and then Juric’s. In between many, too many disappointments for a people, the Roma people, who if with De Rossi had experienced moments of hope and ascent, especially in the Europa League, with Ivan Juric had touched the abyss of starvation and habituation to defeat, which had become no longer an option but a habit.
The arrival of Claudio Ranieri, a navigated technician of proven reliability, had already rearranged at the tail end of 2024 a situation that had gone from critical to tragicomic, with the abyss of the relegation zone closer than the peaks of the coveted Champions zone. Lacking, however, was the treble, the joy.
Roma’s 2025 opened in a diametrically opposite way from the previous calendar year: again facing the eternal rivals Lazio, again a derby, faced among other things with the shame of a ranking that at the opening whistle saw the biancocelesti at +15 over the Giallorossi. But this time the music has changed because it was the conductor who changed: Ranieri has put, to quote Rudi Garcia, “the Church back in the center of the village,” doing what seems to come most easily and naturally to him, namely winning the derby. If 3 clues make a proof, how to evaluate the 5 clues coming directly from the coach’s history? Ranieri has, in fact, played 5 derbies as Roma coach, winning 5 times, in sometimes hair-raising and unthinkable ways. In 2010, for example, he had found himself in the midst of the Scudetto struggle against Mourinho’s unbeatable Inter, the marvelous team that later went down in history for the “triplete.” Match after match that Roma had managed to recover points and many many positions bringing itself close to the Nerazzurri, even to beat them in an epic direct clash at the Stadio Olimpico. Then the derby had arrived, with its load of pitfalls and unknowns, and although that was a Lazio struggling in the lower reaches of a then baleful standings, everyone in Rome knew that it would be a no holds barred battle, because all the people of Lazio were asking the team to redeem its negative season by taking the Scudetto away from its city rival. The first half had confirmed Roma’s fears on the eve of the match, with Rocchi’s opening goal paving the way for a Biancocelesti solo: Roma, passive and helpless, had seemed truly destined to succumb. At the beginning of the second half had come the move that no one had ever expected: Ranieri had gone all in by having Totti and De Rossi, Romans and Romanisti, symbols of the team who were feeling the derby too much and were objectively playing badly, leave the field to insert Menez and Taddei, changing the tactical look of the team. Unthinkable but not impossible. The turnaround, from 0-1 to 2-1, with Vucinic’s double and a penalty parried by Julio Sergio to Floccari that had made the evening even more epic, had kept the Roma ship on the waterline toward the tricolor, which would later sink on the Blucerchiato iceberg led by Cassano and Pazzini, but that is another story. The derby had been won, in the most resounding way possible.
Mutuating the buoyancy of a recent Sanremese success by Achille Lauro, it may well be said that Claudio Ranieri has “fallen for it again”: this time the move, unthinkable and surprising but equally successful, had an even opposite matrix. Roma’s captain and symbol, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Roman and Romanista in the midst of a crisis, was thrown into the fray from the first minute in a derby that no one thought he could and should have played, let alone as a starter. This time the very premise of the match was opposite to 2010: the balky season was definitely Roma’s and the top positions were (and still are) the prerogative of Baroni’s Lazio, which arrived 15 points ahead of the direct clash. But once again the result proved Ranieri and his vision right: Pellegrini played an extraordinary game, enhanced by a marvelous goal in the opener that paved the way for a success that smacks of liberation and rebirth, for the captain and his crew.
Saelemaekers’ stopper sealed the deal as early as the 18th minute, the rest was defense of the result and irrepressible final joy. The first joy of 2025. Whether it was the first of many, as the fans hope, the future will tell. Today in they know they can count on enlightened and inspired leadership on the bench. A guide who, when it comes to derbies, does not miss a beat.
How important the role of the coach is in modern soccer is also demonstrated by the case of Napoli, which has gone in just a few months from the glory of the Scudetto, experienced at the end of Spalletti’s exhilarating second season in the shadow of Vesuvius, to the vicissitudes of the last championship, with the unfortunate and inadequate guides of Garcia, Mazzarri and Calzona, who failed to take the partenopei even to Europe. This season, with the hiring of Antonio Conte, Napoli has returned to navigate in the upper zones of the standings, which most compete with them, ending the first round as winter champions, even if this title, as fictitious as it is an end in itself, is “soiled” by the competitions to be recovered of competitors Atalanta and Inter, which could catch up (the Dea) and overtake (Inter) Conte’s team. But these are accounts that will be made in due time: the only account that matters is Conte’s. Behind the tongue-twister there is an incontrovertible reality, confirmed by Lukaku and his teammates’ clear victory at home to Fiorentina: Napoli is playing for the title, also and above all thanks to its coach.
The article Roma wins derby: no one like Ranieri in history. How much coaches matter in modern soccer! comes from TheNewyorker.
