Rome, will to power
You have to look for the sporting data between the ovation of the Olimpico and the emotion for the Shakhtar jerseys with the names of the cities martyred by Putin’s horror. But there is. Because there are many ways to win against a sparring partner, and Roma have chosen the best, unleashing the imagination and class of an attacking quartet that is a candidate for leadership in the championship, the muscular reasoning of Matic, the empathy of the exchanges that already tell what a close-knit group is. The five goals of the Giallorossi are a sample of altruism. Put this grace alongside the wise tactical dominance that bent Conte’s Tottenham a week ago, and you have the tally of the boost in power Mourinho’s one year and summer signing campaign brought to this team.
There Rome by Dybala and Zaniolo, by Pellegrini and Abraham, by Matic and Wijnaldum, by Spinazzola and Mancini it plays to win in all the races it is called to. The Argentine of Laguna Larga shines with the colors of Joya and nostalgia, depending on where you look at it. From the terraces of the eternal city bathed in love, or rather by the lost ones of Turin, where his departure already seems like the incomprehensible exile of the sublime. Heel dribbling, pirouette and shooting, assists brushed with magic, he is always in the game, as if those four-way exchanges, which after nineteen minutes lead Pellegrini to the goal, and which are repeated throughout the first half like a symphony, were score learned for years, and not a subject acting that every time invents a different and exemplary script.
Zaniolo picked up where he left off. From the hook shot that he gave the Conference two months ago. Faced with his progressing serpentines, the shot-round that is printed on the post, and the advance on the Ukrainian goalkeeper outgoing which is worth the fourth goal of Roma, all the summer chatter about his excesses and his expectations of escape fade into fading. The La Spezia player remains the best in Italian football, with the clear talent of all the tests of seriousness and continuity that he is called upon to dare. If Roma gave him up, he would make the same mistake that Juve made with Dybala.
Then, of course, the Shakhtar that the war has emptied from the sheath of its noble members is not even the Salernitana, which hosts Rome next Sunday on the first day. And it’s not Juve, who are waiting for him at the Allianz in the third, on the twenty-seventh of August. Playing with Abraham, Dybala, Zaniolo and Pellegrini together is not an eternal privilege. Even if the captain retreats as often as needed, and advances as many times vertically when there is an opportunity to slip into the void by a triangulation. Wijnaldum and Matic are more likely to team up in the middle of the pitch, and someone up front will have to take turns. But the assortment is proof of the championship. Not only for what we have seen so far, but for the propensity to grow that Mourinho’s teams have. Among the choirs of a stadium that shows its fame for victories with a Risorgimento charge, the harmony of this group can become an indomitable will to power. The big ones are warned.