After all the pre-season build up and the chaos endured by the Coronavirus over last season which is clearly affecting this season too, Roma, in the end, shot themselves in the foot.
The club coached by Paulo Fonseca thought that they had earned a point away to tricky opponents in Verona as the game had ended 0-0. Not so, there was more drama to come.
Verona were awarded a 3-0 win in the end that is standard practice in football due to the other team either cheating or make a terrible error- in Roma’s case they made a terrible error. A wrong player selection. The case of Amadou Diawara to be exact who was added to the Under 22 portion of Roma’s squad even though he turned 23 in July. That is a serious no no and Serie A sporting judge Gerardo Mastrandrea officially awarded the win to Verona and the game’s original result effectively null and void.
Pantaleo Longo Roma’s secretary has handed in his resignation and Roma have lost a point and been made to look foolish, though of course it was just human error but rules are rules.
It leaves Roma in 19th place, not exactly where they want to be as they have been seen this season as genuine title challengers to the all conquering Juventus. Without the mix up Roma would be entering their 2nd league game in 9th place, 10 places above. The good news of course is that there is plenty of time to make those points up.
As for the game Fonseca’s side lined up with a formation of 3-4-2-1 packing the midfield. New signing from Arsenal Henrikh Mkhitaryan played the lone striker.
Roma enjoyed more of the possession and had 15 attempts on goal, though only 7 on target which was the same as Verona.
Goalkeeper Antonio Mirante collected the most points earning 7pts for his ‘clean sheet’ of course whether that will stand long term is unclear in the fantasy rankings. The best outfield player on the day was defender Ibanez who seemed to be everywhere and cover so much ground, his value is 6m to add to your team and he earned 5pts.
The other big news coming out of the club this week is that striker Edin Dzeko looks very likely that he will join Juventus. The deal will be for 2 years, and that dashes any hope that Luis Suarez had of joining the old lady although he looks set for a move to Atletico Madrid.
Roma’s next game will be against the champions Juventus, they will be at home in a very early test for the club. The result remains uncertain but one thing is for sure and that is the team line ups will be checked and checked again.
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