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Horncastle: Hope is last to die as Spalletti takes improved Roma to Madrid
It may surprise you to learn that Roma are one of the few teams, along with Arsenal and Barcelona, to have recorded more wins than losses on their visits to Charmartín. History is on their side even if public opinion is not. November’s 6-1 defeat to Barça at the Camp Nou remains indelible in the mind of the casual fan and the grandeur of Real Madrid, their “golden years” celebrated even in the great Italian songbook by the 883, continues to exert a powerful grip on the popular consciousness.
Saturday’s 7-1 win against a Celta Vigo side that surprised Barça 4-1 at the beginning of the season and knocked Atleti out of the Copa del Rey served as a warning, if ever one were needed, of the white heat that burns opponents to a crisp in this part of the world.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored a poker. He is now up to 39 for the season. Gareth Bale got back on the scoresheet for the first time since his return from injury. Hope for Roma is as difficult to come by as a table reservation at Mesón Txistu on Champions League nights in Madrid, particularly after their 2-0 defeat in the first leg at the Olimpico.
Statistically speaking, Roma have a 3% chance of qualifying. But hope is always the last thing to die and while a place in the quarter-finals appears distinctly improbable, a famous result like the one they got in 2008 isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. After all, Roma have come on a lot since they last flew to Spain and are now playing to their potential.
Spalletti has brought order and a respect for the rules at Trigoria. There was a sense that his predecessor Rudi Garcia indulged the players. Now Roma train more and at greater intensity. The tactical sessions have increased. Roma weren’t flexible enough under Garcia. They didn’t have a Plan B. Spalletti has made them more versatile. Everyone expected him to play the 4-3-2-1 from his first spell and he did in his first game back against Verona. But only because, between flying from Florence to Miami then Rome for talks with the owner and the club, he hadn’t had time to implement the 3-4-2-1 he wished to try.
In the meantime, Roma have lined up in diamond, a Christmas tree and a 4-3-3. They shape shift in-game. Spalletti hasn’t been afraid to try things. For instance he knew Antonio Rüdiger had experience playing in a back 3 in Germany so why not give that a go? Spalletti experimented with Rüdiger at right wing-back too.
The defence hasn’t been the only thing Spalletti has played around with. Upon observing Miralem Pjanic closely, he didn’t see why he couldn’t play in a deeper role like David Pizarro used to for the club, particularly with his rhythmic passing ability. He pushed Radja Nainggolan further forward a la Simone Perotta and was rewarded straightaway. Nainggolan is an excellent ball winner and Spalletti, working on the premise that if you get him doing that closer to the box he will score more, was rewarded. Without a goal all season until Spalletti’s arrival, the Belgium international scored twice in the new manager’s first three games in charge.
Spalletti then asked himself: how do you solve a problem Edin Dzeko? Roma’s big summer signing hadn’t scored from open play in the league since the end of August. His confidence was shot to pieces. All Roma needed to do, Spalletti realised, was get him better service and after working on it for a couple of weeks, Dzeko ended an 11-hour and 49-minute goal drought and scored in back-to-back league games.
Players that lost their way were found again. Mohamed Salah falls into that category too. He had gone 10 games without a goal before Spalletti regenerated him. It must also be said that the January signings, all of whom have made an instant impact, also joined without any indication that they would deliver so soon. Monaco had stopped playing Stephan El Shaarawy in order not to activate the clause that would make his move from Milan permanent. Diego Perotti wasn’t performing at Genoa to the same level he did last season. On the contrary he had got more red cards [2] than goals for the Grifone this term.
And yet Spalletti has transformed all of them. El Shaarawy scored in back-to-back league games for the first time in four years. The Pharaoh has combined for seven in his first six appearances for the club. Meanwhile, Salah has been involved in eight goals in his last four games and as for Perotti, he is excelling in the False 9 role Francesco Totti pioneered in Spalletti’s first spell at the club. Once unstructured going forward, particularly with the anarchic Gervinho and Juan Iturbe, Roma now have precise movements and varied patterns of play.
Spalletti has accomplished an awful lot in a short space of time. He has revealed himself to be full of ideas, able to motivate and affect a change in mentality and there can be no better example of this than Salah sprinting the length and breadth of the pitch to recover a lost ball against Palermo. Roma were 4-0 up. Salah had scored twice, including a goal of the month contender, and still his commitment was total.
Roma’s rehabilitation matches Salah for pace. Recall they had won just one of their previous seven league games when Spalletti returned. How things have changed. The Lupi have now won seven in a row and Juventus coach Max Allegri believes they should be included in the conversation for the Scudetto.
The first of those wins against Frosinone felt like “a liberation.” Spalletti has helped lift the weight off their shoulders. Roma are averaging three goals a game in this run and are enjoying their football again. Crucially, the fans have come back too.
Unlucky in the first leg a fortnight ago, Roma contained Real relatively well. Perotti sacrificed himself in order to stop them from getting in any kind of rhythm. He hurried and harassed their centre-backs making it difficult for them to play out from the back and looked to do the same job on Toni Kroos. Real didn’t muster a single shot on target in the first half. The last time that happened was five years ago in the semi-finals against Barça.
A moment of individual brilliance rather than collective dominance broke the game open. Ronaldo’s shot beat Wojciech Szczesny with the help of a deflection off Alessandro Florenzi. “Give Ronaldo a meter and he takes a kilometer,” Spalletti said. Roma should have had a penalty as well when Dani Carvajal brought Florenzi down in the area 10 minutes from time with the score 1-0. Real instead doubled their lead. The fact Roma conceded a second goal and the manner in which they did so was the biggest disappointment. Lucas Digne couldn’t have backed off Jese more if he tried. “Great performance. Bad result,” was Florenzi assessment.
A similarly measured but bolder approach at the Bernabeu could get Roma a result that further boosts their confidence. One imagines Real will seek to play with even more freedom in front of their own fans but the opportunity for Roma is that it will leave space in behind for them to counter-attack. On the occasions that Salah got forward in the first leg, he either had no one in support, no one of stature to cross to or made the wrong decision. Obviously this has to improve. It has done in the interim and expect it to inform Spalletti’s team selection. For instance does he start Dzeko for his hold up play and aerial prowess or stick with El Shaarawy? Tactically speaking Perotti is indispensable at the moment and it’s in balance and coherence that Roma have an advantage over the unbalanced Real.
Realistically qualification seems out of the question. But a draw or a repeat of the famous win in 2008 doesn’t. After all, as Spalletti said on Sunday: “Every team is beatable.” Even the grande Real.
