If the goal of this first league match was to be not to miss the striker Mourinho is still waiting for, somehow Andrea Belotti did everything to hit him, but if everything had to be aimed at guaranteeing the conquest of three points while awaiting the missing grafts (and the return to the field of Dybala and Pellegrini, regretfully disqualified for the day) then the quality of Candreva, 36 years old, was not calculated, but very hot feet, and, in the evening, ruthless, surgical , kill them.
First the right, to taunt Smalling, then the left, around the top corner. Had it not been for the two feats of Salernitana’s best player, Roma would have brought home their first victory and celebrated their striker of the day as should have been, and instead the week that separates from the next match (Saturday evening in Verona) will between one controversial debate and another. Too bad because the evening had even begun with a double exultation from Belotti, capable of packing two goals in 9 minutes, after having closed the entire last championship with a dry mouth. The first, however, was canceled by the millimeter offside unearthed by the infernal geometries of the Var, who sometimes would ask with which very precise software the players on the field are transferred to a drawing, until finding the offside big toe of Belotti’s silhouette compared to the little finger of the Gyomber silhouette: but oh well.
The taste of the mockery for that prowess in the 8th minute thwarted by the computer was so bitter (also beautiful in the attacker’s cut behind Fazio, and in Cristante’s assist from trocar) that the goal seemed a due compensation almost immediately next, in the 17th minute to be precise, with an assist from further away this time from Llorente, and the leonine fight from Gallo first to contend for the ball from Fazio’s back and then to move it in the following impetus to Gyomber for the other left jab to beat Ochoa, and this time it was all true.
After the equalizer at the end of the first half and even the overtaking goal by the former Lazio player at the start of the second, yet another effort by Gallo was needed to avoid at least the shame of defeat: and it happened in the 37th minute of the second half, imperious on a corner from the recently entered Paredes, with Fazio and Gyomber firm as statuettes. But before, during and after the 4 goals that marked the first day of the 2023-2024 championship at the Olympic stadium, there was something else and almost everything was done by Roma.
The atmosphere wasn’t exactly the warmest, in spite of a tropical temperature which certainly doesn’t make the players’ task easier on the pitch and sometimes unnerves the spirits of those in the stands. In various parts of the match, the 5,000 Salernitana fans in the away sector were heard more than the other 57,000, resulting in yet another sold-out (62,050 coupons detached). Yet Roma started strong, in their new 352 with Belotti and El Shaarawy dividing the front of attack, with Bove the most advanced midfielder in offensive pressures (it was he who stood up on the opponent’s central third in setting), Aouar in the centre-right, Cristante in directing, the uncertain Kristensen and Spinazzola on the flanks (then the issue of wingers will have to be discussed), and the defense with the new starters Mancini, Smalling and Llorente, in front of Rui Patricio. In front of a three-man defense also for Paulo Sousa’s Salernitana, with Lovato recovered, plus the former Roma players (the weak points of the department) Gyomber and Fazio, Mazzocchi and Bradaric dynamic outsiders of a four-man midfield with Lassana Coulibaly and Maggiore, and two attacking midfielders (Kastanos and Candreva) behind Botheim, who keeps Dia’s place warm (on the bench). Up until the equalizing goal (36′) only Roma were seen on the pitch, with Cristante particularly active in the initial setting and stitching work of the departments, little assisted on the flanks, supported instead in the middle by the generosity of Bove and the imagination of Aouar.
The first ball-goal, transformed into gold by Belotti and then cancelled, was born from a very happy intuition of Cristante. In the 17th minute the real goal came instead from a long ball from Llorente precisely for the very inspired new Roma striker, shouldering Fazio and dribbling on Gyomber and 1-0. In the 20th minute the brace could already arrive, on a Bove tower for Belotti himself, a quick left-footed jab, almost involuntarily rejected by Gyomber. In the 22nd minute, a free-kick by Aouar that fell in the small area put Gyomber in difficulty who first tried to control the ball and then unleashed it by sending it onto his own post and then into a corner. In the 33rd minute another corner from the Algerian hit Smalling at the far post, the strong header was rejected by Ochoa right on Mancini who tried the tap-in with his knee from half a meter away defying the laws of physics by sending the ball over the crossbar.
The old rule of goal eaten-goal conceded found adequate application on the wide triangle opened and closed by Candreva, who went to collect Fazio’s verticalization in the space left free by Mancini who came out on Coulibaly, and then skilfully jumped Smalling like a rookie: Chris he should have accompanied the opponent on the left, instead he gave him the space to return on the right, and from there it was easy for him to beat Rui Patricio. Roma’s fault was not to storm the opponent’s goal right away after the draw, and at half-time it was as if it were obvious to share the stakes.
So when at the beginning of the second half Candreva invented the advantage advantage, Roma realized they had a big problem. With the heat, the humidity and the limited means available (outside Dybala and Pellegrini, the most talented of the Roma players in the squad), recovering and winning seemed at that point an impossible undertaking. All of Candreva’s merits have been said about the goal, but it should be underlined that Cristante (who found himself marking on the long cross from the left), rather than trying to intervene with a header, should have at a certain point thought of controlling the stop opponent, and instead gave him space for that wonderful idea, which was later fully implemented.
For a while, Roma seemed paralyzed by the fear of losing. El Shaarawy hit a free-kick from the edge not badly while Belotti went down on a roguish touch from Coulibaly: not much to give a penalty to Roma, which is usually only given when the joints are undermined, let alone if Feliciano di could give one Teramo.
Thus Mourinho ordered four changes to Rapetti on the bench (with Bruno Conti representing the category of coaches thanks to the first category license): in Zalewski, Renato Sanches, Paredes and Karsdorp, out Spinazzola, Bove, Smalling and Kristensen, with Cristante lowered in defense and therefore unchanged module. Sousa put Dia in for Mazzocchi, with Kastanos moving to the wing and Botheim in front. Salernitana no longer shot on goal, Roma tried in different ways. El Shaarawy took the outside post following an assist from Renato, then Belotti equalized from a corner that perhaps didn’t exist. And in the final, with Pagano in place of Aouar, Belotti tried to engrave again (a whisker ahead of a good initiative by El Shaarawy) and Renato Sanches, right-footed just outside. And it ended like this, with great regret.
