Was this what Francesco Totti meant when he suggested Daniele De Rossi was at risk of becoming the new José Mourinho? Roma’s match at Genoa had just tipped into second-half injury time when the manager was sent off for clamouring against the referee’s decisions.
It was the first red card of De Rossi’s managerial career. Mourinho received seven during his two-and-a-half seasons in charge of the Giallorossi. The Italian has a way to catch up yet, but eight months into his tenure he is starting to face questions about whether he is truly improving on his predecessor’s work elsewhere.
De Rossi’s appointment in January felt like a collective unburdening. The final chapter of Mourinho’s tenure became an exhausting series of feuds: against referees, rivals, football federations and even his own club for failing to defend him after a rancorous parking lot epilogue to the lost Europa League final against Sevilla.
Results on the pitch echoed the mood off it, with only two wins in Mourinho’s last seven matches. De Rossi won six of his first seven in Serie A. Even the one loss was softened by supporters’ delight at a swashbuckling approach against Inter.
There were few dissenting voices when Roma’s owners, the Friedkin Group, extended his contract through to 2027. The Giallorossi had faded down the stretch, missing out on Champions League football for a sixth consecutive year, but there was broad consensus that this former club captain deserved a chance to make the team his own.
De Rossi promised Roma would look different this season, saying they needed to become more dynamic. He asked the club’s new sporting director, Florent Ghisolfi, to bring him runners of all different stripes: marathon men who could cover the pitch and sprinters to penetrate opposing defences.
After several transfer windows operating under strict financial fair play restraints, Roma were granted greater freedom in this window and used it aggressively, spending more than €90m in transfer fees. Headline signings included Artem Dovbyk, whose 24 goals for Girona last season made him La Liga’s top scorer, the Juventus NextGen graduate Matías Soulé and the Rennes midfielder Enzo Le Fée.
Those numbers, as always, ought to be read with nuance. Roma made significant reductions to their wage bill, as loan deals for players such as Romelu Lukaku, Renato Sanches, Diego Llorente, Rasmus Kristensen and Dean Huijsen all expired while Rui Patricio and Leonardo Spinazzola were allowed to run out their contracts and Tammy Abraham was loaned to Milan.
Paulo Dybala – the club’s highest earner after Lukaku – also looked set to leave, before deciding at the last moment to reject a move to Al-Qadsiah in the Saudi Pro League. It was a decision that delighted supporters but might have frustrated Ghisolfi in his ambition of further renewing the squad.
In any case, Roma approached the new season optimistic for a fresh start. In 2023-24, on average, their starting XIs were the third-oldest in Serie A. They lined up against Cagliari on the opening weekend of this season with the fifth-youngest.
The results, so far, have been underwhelming. Roma drew 0-0 against Cagliari, lost at home to Empoli then had another goalless stalemate at Juventus. They were finally on course for a first victory this Sunday, leading 1-0 against Genoa, when De Rossi was sent off.
Dovbyk had scored the goal, his first for Roma. The joy of getting off the mark in the 38th minute was suppressed by an errant flag from the assistant referee. VAR eventually came to his rescue. Roma dominated the first half, and ought to have had a penalty at 0-0 when Koni De Winter hooked Dybala’s heel inside the box. Even after the interval, as Genoa took a greater share of possession, De Rossi’s team had the better chances. Dovbyk missed a chance to double Roma’s lead, firing too close to the goalkeeper at close range.
Instead, in the 96th minute, Genoa found an equaliser, De Winter heading home Vítinha’s left-wing cross. The game finished 1-1, leaving Roma without a win in their first four matches of a Serie A season for only the fourth time in the club’s history.
It is too early yet to talk of crises, but a pair of interviews given by Totti last week – to the broadcaster Sky Sport and the newspaper Il Messaggero, have sharpened the focus on De Rossi. Asked if Roma were ready to return to the Champions League, Totti replied: “Seeing how much they spent in the transfer window, they need to get there. If you spend €100m and don’t get there, that’s a total failure. Without the Champions League, Daniele will be gone before the end of the season.”
It seems unlikely that Totti intended harm to De Rossi, a teammate for 16 years at Roma and still a close friend. At another point in the same interview, he said: “I would not give him a hand but my whole arm if it helped him do well and have some calm.”
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Less warm might be his feelings toward Roma’s ownership. Asked why he had not taken on a role at the club himself, Totti replied: “I don’t know”, before suggesting some members of the board might be afraid of his influence. “Things I say get taken seriously. Things other people say, less so.”
The comparison he drew between De Rossi and Mourinho was really another thinly veiled criticism of Roma’s leadership, Totti saying the current manager, just like his predecessor, could become a lightning rod for discontent. “If the club comes out and lays its objectives out clearly, everything will be calm,” he said. “But right now, if things don’t go well, everything falls on Daniele. It’s the same thing that happened to Mourinho, because José put his face forward. Nobody helped him. Nobody spoke.”
In his post-game press conference on Sunday, De Rossi said he could not comment on Totti’s thoughts as they had not caught up for a few days. “All managers are lightning rods,” he added. “We bear the responsibility for whatever happens. I was hired in a difficult moment for the club, but I think I earned the right to continue. If going the same way as Mourinho means getting fired if results don’t go our way then I think my fate is the same as any other manager.”
Quick Guide
Serie A results
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Milan 4-0 Venezia, Empoli 0-0 Juventus, Como 2-2 Bologna, Monza 1-1 Inter, Cagliari 0-4 Napoli, Torino 0-0 Lecce, Atalanta 3-2 Fiorentina, Genoa 1-1 Roma
Where he differs from the Portuguese is in a willingness to speak plainly about targets. This time last year, Mourinho was refusing to entertain journalists’ questions about the Champions League, saying he was only thinking about the next game and deflecting with arguments about Lazio spending more on transfers.
On Sunday, De Rossi was more open, saying: “We are a team that needs to battle for the Champions League. That’s our objective. We’re starting to get a bit tired of always coming sixth.”
Roma have finished in that position in four of the past six seasons, rising once to fifth and dropping the other time to seventh. Extraordinary consistency for a club that has gone through five different managers and two ownerships in the same stretch. For the last three seasons, they have even contrived to finish on the exact same points total: 63.
De Rossi did hedge his words, adding that falling short of fourth would not be a “failure”, in his view, “because there are other teams too”. His more immediate thought, though, felt the most telling: “It would have done us a lot of good to win here.”