‘The Roman Republic describes the period in which the city-state of Rome existed as a republican government (from 509 B.C.E. to 27 B.C.E.), one of the earliest examples of representative democracy in the world’ – National Geographic.
‘Kings had been ruling in Rome for more than 200 years, ever since the city’s foundation, but Tarquin, the seventh in line, would also be the last. With his expulsion, the monarchy itself was overthrown, and, in its place, a free republic proclaimed’ – Tom Holland, Rubicon.
Technically, I have started writing this update before the end of season one (though I’ll be done by the time I publish), with about 5 games left in the Serie A season, but the end of our domestic season is so absolutely nailed on – with Champions League qualification secured – that I’m ready to start and discuss, and plan for season two. As I write however, we do have a European adventure ongoing (tune in later for discussion of Roman expansion across Europe). Right now we’re in the first stage of our development as a club, as we try to establish dominance over Italy. 🇮🇹
Of course, to do that, we’ll need to win Serie A, and we’re not there yet, as we finish the 2023/24 season in a comfortable second place, the spot we spent the majority of the season in, sortof in a league of our own. Towards the end of the league season we did actually end up in a title fight with an incredible AC Milan side (at one point just 2 points behind), but seemed to falter at that final step, dropping points right at the death, with our unbeaten run we’d started since moving to the 3-4-2-1 finally coming to an end in May at the hands of relegated Frosinone, as we pushed forwards looking at get a win to maintain pace with Milan. You can see from the form column the decline in our form towards the end of the season in comparison to Milan, who just got stronger as the season went on. There were reasons for our decline in form, but I’ll go into those later, as we had more than just the Scudetto to contend with in the months of April and May.
The clear area of improvement are the draws, and they’re going to turn from draws to wins through scoring more goals, plain and simple. We have the second best defence in Italy, but only the fourth best attack, and it’s those games where we haven’t been able to get a second to secure the the win that in the end have ended up costing us the Scudetto. Nevertheless, this has still been a fantastic first season of the save, and if you’d offered me a comfortable second place at the begining of the season, I’d have absolutely bitten your hand off. It’s now about identifying how we can improve, develop, and make our way up to the level of AC Milan. Now, enough about Serie A, what about the Coppa Italia? 🇮🇹
Yep, AC Milan AGAIN. Not only did we come second in the league to them – without them beating us since our move to the 3-4-2-1 – but we also lost to them in the final of the Coppa Italia. They couldn’t beat us within the 90 minutes or extra time, and in the end we were just unfortunate in the shoot out – Edoardo Bove missing our chance to win the game – with AC outlasting us. We were comfortably the best team in the final as well, and to come away without being able to finally beat Milan is a bit galling. Milan had actually taken the lead through Benaccer in the first ten minutes, but after that I’d certainly argue we had the better of the game. Unfortunately, once Torres brought us back level, we weren’t able to make our advantage count, and again this is really something we need to rectify heading into next year. So unfortunately, after a great domestic season we come away without any Italian trophies, as our expansion across Italy continues, but without great success as of yet – yes, I’m getting as many historical references in here as possible!
Now, I teased a European adventure earlier in the post, and it certainly was an adventure! I’ll be honest, in recent saves I’ve gained little enjoyment from European competitions, finding them becoming quite mundane, and I’ve ended up almost entirely focusing on the domestic league competitions, and really paying Europe very little attention. This time however:
Yeah, I know, penalties again in the final. However, to reduce our European adventure to that final would be to do a great disservice to the gauntlet our team went through once we made it through the group stages. In the Round of 16 we drew the – at that time – leaders of La Liga Villarreal, playing what looked like a dangerous 4-4-2. However, they never really got that close to us, and we absolutely desroyed them in the second leg 5-2 to win 7-3 on aggregate. We were rewarded for that great performance with Barcelona, the actual winners of La Liga. After a tough 1-1 draw at the Olimpico, we eased past what was actually a poor Barcelona on the night with a 2-0 win. At that point we then drew minnows Ajax in the semi-final, which was by far the best draw we could have got, with Liverpool in the other semi-final facing Paris Saint-Germain (somehow?!). After easing past another seemingly tough opponent in Ajax we drew Liverpool in the final, and again found ourselves the better team on the night.
Their two shots on target just demonstrates how little they threatened us throughout the game. Much like the Coppa Italia final against Milan, it was infuriating our inability to really kill off the game. Romelu Lukaku, who had really returned to form for us in the second half of the season, absolutely vanished, ending the game with a 6.4 rating. Going into writing this update, I knew that striker was a spot we needed to improve, but it’s become more and more clear to me as I’ve written this that our lack of ability to kill games off and win big games by multiple goals has cost us trophies this season, and I have to prioritise the improvement of our striker corps. As much as Lukaku went missing, he’s been my main source of goals with 24 across the season, and Tammy Abraham looks like a shadown of himself – and I’ll look to move him on – and Andrea Belotti is a good rotation option and depth player, but nothing more.
So as season one of this save ends, this has been undoubtedly a good season. Our aim was to finish in the top four in Serie A and achieve Champions League football, and we did that with ease, finishing second comfortably. We competed on three fronts, probably before were were actually ready to, and it showed at the end of the season, with fitness becoming more of an issue, rotation becoming less and less possible as I looked to put my best team on the pitch with each game, as every game became important. Again, as disappointing as it is to miss out on two trophies thanks to penalty shoot-outs, I would have taken that at the begining of the season. It’s now time to prepare for season two, which realistically I want to be a season one consolidation. I’d love to be able to win Serie A, but realistically I want to secure our spot as the second best team in Italy, and begin to prepare the future of the team to overtake Milan and win the Scudetto. To do so, I’ve already recruited some key additions, particularly Giovanni Simeone from Napoli for €7m, Alessandro Buongiorno from Inter for €8.5m, and the pick of the bunch, Michael Kayode for €13.75m from Fiorentina. With Gaetano Castrovilli also coming in from Fiorentina on a Bosman, these players provide the first few signings that will hopefully cause the team to improve next season.
We’ve got Saudi interested in some of our players as well, particularly both Number 10s Armand Laurienté and Facundo Torres. Whilst they’ve both played well this season and I have no particular desire to move them on, if the right bid comes in it’ll be hard to turn it down. What’s more, I also don’t want to give up on Martin Baturina. He may have struggled in his first half-season with us, but annoyingly his last game was the second leg against Ajax in the Europa League, and he had his best game of the season before then picking up an injury that wold keep him out for the rest of the season.
Tactically, I’m happy right now with the 3-4-2-1, althogh I’m still not sure it’s perfect. Again, finishing second in the league and reaching the finals of both cup competitions we were in – and beating some major teams along the way – is certainly something to be proud of, but I’m a little bit insure whether the approach is going to be too cautoous long term. I love the possession play we generate, and at times it reminds me quite a lot of Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea, one of my favourite teams of the last five years in world football. I’m still looking to make additional signings as I enter the transfer window, and we’ll see what the system looks like with upgrades for season two. Other than the areas I’ve already improved at centre back and right wing-back, I’d still like to improve left-wing back, but the absolute priority is striker, and I’m still unsure who to sign there.
So, until next time, which likely will be a summary of the transfer window and a preview of season two as we look to consolidate our position in the Italian top four, and look to push up towards the Scudetto, thank you so much for reading and as always if you have any questions about this save, my tactic, my long-term plans for Roma, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments or on Twitter (@JLAspey). Forza Roma!
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