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Roma's own-goal against Cagliari
Posted - 30th March 2008
Oh dear. Roma went into this weekend with their hopes up. Inter Milan stalled against Juventus last week, leaving just four points difference between the teams. Roma faced bottom of the table Cagliari, while Inter faced Lazio, a decidedly more difficult team - at least on paper. What wasn't on the cards was a shocking own-goal, in the opening minutes, by Roma defender (and former Everton player) Matteo Ferrari. Facing into a corner kick, with no Cagliari players nearby, Ferrari stopped/deflected the ball into the corner of Doni's net.
The own-goal was a telling metaphor for Roma's key problem. Without taking anything away from Cagliari's gustry performance, Roma lost this match (though it ended in a draw), throwing away repeated occasions to draw and go-ahead. All the magic you'd expect from the second-placed team in Serie A was left behind, it seems, in the dressing room. Slow to start, and late to finish, Roma have now made a meal two weeks running in beating the lowest placed squads in Serie A.
Admittedly they were playing away from home, and missing a number of key players including Perotta, Vucinic, and De Rossi, but that scarcely makes up for the difference in approach. Cagliari threw themselves into the game, like a team fighting to save themselves from relegation (which they are), whilst Roma yawned into action, rudely awoken by Ferrari's mishap. Cagliari, though low-ranking, posess some fine players in the likes of Jeda (ex-Rimini), Aquafresca, and Pasquale Foggia, all of whom kept the Roma defence on their toes. Spalletti had to thank his lucky stars, on more than one occasion, that he had a returned to form Philipe Mexes on hand to counter Foggia's runs. Ferrari meanwhile made up for his earlier mistake with some crucial and precise tackles.
In attack Roma faltered though - placing the emphasis on Alessandro Mancini's flexible feet coupled with the pace and precision of French midfielder Ludovic Giuly and captain Francesco Totti - to little avail. Giuly had a number of chances saved by a tremendously in form Cagliari goalkeeper Marco Storari, while Mancini and Ferrari both fumbled some golden opportunities to put the giallorossi back into the game.
In the end, as happens worryingly often, it fell to the Catpain, Francesco Totti, to take matters into his own hands. At the close of the first half he blasted home a free kick from outside the box, which defeated a strangely slow-moving Storari.
The own-goal of the first half could thus be forgotten at the start of the second half, and Roma should have put matters to right with forty-five minutes to play. Instead, the second-half saw an increasingly desperate Roma fight to win those vital three points, while Cagliari absorbed the pressure and made occasional breaks with the likes of Jeda, and later on Matri.
All the bravado and talk of favouritism coming from the likes of Francesco Totti at Roma, with regard to their Serie A rivals, can't mask one telling factor. Against the smaller teams, Inter have been clinical and determined in their approach, and have reaped the benefits. Roma, instead, have been slow to close off the less important games, and now finding themselves tantalisingly close to stealing the scudetto at the last moment have no-one but themselves to blame.
The smart money will rule them out for the scudetto. Based on the evidence of the last two games, Roma fans will be more than a little pre-occupied by the up-coming Champions League fixture against Manchester United, the team that so-humiliated them last year. A repeat drubbing may well be on the cards, unless this undoubtedly talented team tackles it's slow starts
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