After Midweek EL Victory, Roma Travels to Florence to Face Fiorentina

Roma’s midweek win against Dynamo Kyiv might not have been the prettiest, but it was a necessary one. With those three points, the Giallorossi are now hovering in the “knockout” range for advancement in EL — and while some might find the Europa League to be a waste of time, as I always say: what other opportunity will Roma have for silverware this season? There are still five matches left of “league play” in the Europa League, but that win at least righted the ship for the Giallorossi after two poor forays into European play against Athletic Bilbao and IF Elfsborg.

Now comes the true challenge: resuscitating Roma’s Serie A campaign. After eight match days, the Giallorossi are perfectly midtable in 10th place. A club like Sassuolo or Torino might find that perfectly acceptable for less than a third of the way into the season. Still, it is an embarrassment for a club like Roma, whose players publicly aspire to Champions League football. Even worse, this Serie A season almost feels like it’s been handed to Roma on a silver platter as an opportunity to return to the Champions League. There’s no clear-cut best team in the league, and only six points separate Roma from a Champions League slot today despite their atrocious form to start the season.

How will the Giallorossi be able to turn around this season and seize this opportunity that’s been handed to them? Well, they first need to start actually scoring. Roma’s defense has been solid to start the season, but when you have to go back 33 years to find another time when Roma’s offense was this putrid to start the season, it doesn’t matter how many world-class defenders you have or how excellent your goalkeeper is. Simply put, the Giallorossi need to score, and they need to score fast. Hopefully, tomorrow’s match against similarly mid-table Fiorentina will allow for the offensive players who have been duds to start this season to turn things around before it’s too little or too late.

What to Watch For

When Will Matias Soulé Break His Duck?

Photo by Fabio Rossi/AS Roma via Getty Images

Priority number one for Ivan Jurić to unlock offensively has to be Matias Soulé. Sure, Artem Dovbyk and Paulo Dybala are flashier names for now, and their salaries may dwarf the former Frosinone man’s paycheck, but Soulé is supposed to be the undisputed future of the Giallorossi, the heir apparent to La Joya himself. Instead, this start to the season has been tough for Roma’s #18, as he’s scored zero goals in nine matches across all competitions, all while not even racking up an assist.

That needs to change as soon as possible for Roma to have a hope in hell of improving its offense on a weekly basis. Paulo Dybala is not an every-match player at this point in his career (more on that later), and that theoretically should give Soulé the chance to establish himself on the same career path that his Argentinian comrade has taken. The obvious selfishness that Soulé displayed in his first several matches with the Giallorossi has faded with time, perhaps as Soulé began to understand that he didn’t have to be Roma’s only offensive weapon in the way he had to take that mantle with Frosinone.

Yet, given Roma’s silent offense to date, I’d almost advocate for Soulé to regain some of that confidence and selfishness moving forward. Nobody else seems particularly interested in putting balls in the back of the net outside of Artem Dovbyk; the opportunity is there for Soulé to become the clear #2 offensive option on this side. He just has to take it.

Will Paulo Dybala Show His Worth?

Photo by Fabio Rossi/AS Roma via Getty Images

If Soulé is struggling to assert himself in a new environment, Paulo Dybala is on the other side of that journey. The Argentine legend and World Cup winner has been a shell of himself to start this season, with some openly wondering if he can be the centerpiece of a Champions League-level side at this point in his career. My two cents? He’s probably not at that level anymore, particularly with his long-standing injury issues. However, that doesn’t mean that Dybala can’t be incredibly useful for the Giallorossi, or at the very least, better for the club than he has been in his minutes this season.

Fitness will always be an issue for Dybala until he retires, so I don’t anticipate that changing. However, just as I would push for Matias Soulé to become more comfortable asserting himself as the focal point of Roma’s offense, I hope that Ivan Jurić might start quietly suggesting to Dybala that although his innate talent has not gone anywhere, it might be the time for La Joya to start picking his shots, both figuratively and literally. In my book, though, that shouldn’t translate to Dybala playing every other match, or even two matches in three.

Playing time is essential to develop good form, and it’s clear that the lack of consistent time on the pitch has been a factor in why Dybala has been unimpressive to start the season. Instead of playing once a week, I hope that Dybala can move into a different role: one where he plays every match, but maybe 45-60 minutes of each of those matches. Roma’s roster construction is built around Dybala for a reason; he’s an incredibly talented player, the likes of which Roma has not seen since Francesco Totti. That means that when he’s unavailable, Roma’s squad appears rudderless. With that in mind, it’s far better to get some of Dybala each match than ninety minutes in some situations and zero in others. Until Soulé becomes Dybala 2.0, Roma needs a more in-form Dybala to be a Champions League-level side — or at the very least, the team needs a more available Dybala.

Match Details

Date: October 27th

Kickoff: 20:45 EDT/3:45 EDT

Venue: Artemio Franchi, Firenze

Referee: Simone Sozza