Totti Today # 13: Masters of Horror

I missed Maicon during Bayern. I missed Keita as well. And Castan. And Strootman and Balzaretti but they haven’t played for Roma since the dark Middle Ages when dragons and mages existed and Ivan Pellizotti was considered good and Del Neri a promising trainer. Hell, I even miss Zeman after watching Empoli-Cagliari (until I saw Cagliari’s position in the table). Roma’s Week of Horror aka flashback to Manchester United anno 2007 is finally over and we get a reasonable and fairly easy match this Wednesday. At the Olimpico against bottom club Cesena, the definition of a must win.

The response of the team after Bayern wasn’t exactly what we had hoped for, but Samp are doing very well this season and are a hard to break team at home. The clean sheet will boost the confidence of our defence, which was in total shambles after last Tuesday. Sampdoria is not Bayern but Serie A is no Champions League as well. Different competition, diffferent stakes, different trainers and tactics. A draw away to the number 3 of the league (although they will eventually drop in the later stages) is not a bad deal. It’s not what we deserved but we didn’t deserve a 7-1 demolition at the hands of Bayern well. The world’s a tough place to live in, accept it and move on. Learn from mistakes, carry them in your backpack and face the next challenge.

The season started with a bang thanks to the six consecutive wins but now Roma is in a somewhat unpredicting and inconsistent part of the season. Roma’s last five games: DLWLD. One win in five games may look like the start if a first mini crisis at Trigoria but people haven't start throwing eyes yet at the bus. To be fair, we faced some tough adversaries lately and we knew Champions League would have an impact on our Serie A performances. Remember the four consecutive draw of last season, in the same time frame (November 2013). Fiorentina, Inter and Napoli feel the fatigue of the Europa League too, It can happen, don’t worry just yet. And don’t expect a winning streak anytime soon, because November is looking brutal with a trip to ice cold Moscow, Inter at home and two heavy away games ahead of us.

Therefore, Cesena is the perfect little ‘snack’ in between. An easy, commanding, overwhelming win is very welcome before Roma travel to both Napoli AND Bayern in the space of five days. Are we on the verge of another Roman Week of Horror? Who knows. But a big win against Cesena wil surely ease the crowd and lessen the pressure on Garcia and the players. Lose points and sh*t hits the fan before the real tough part has yet to begin. So there’s probably a lot more at stake against Cesena than Sampdoria. That’s the price we have to pay, as Italy’s second major team after Juve and as a Champions League participant. Don’t feel sad, just look at the busy schedule and incoming money and you’ll feel a lot better. We get a lot of Roma matches these days, Roma gets a lot of bucks for basically losing 7-1 (tv rights, stadium revenue,…). There are always positives, you just have to search really really hard.

For example, you could be in the situation of Milan or Lazio: no Europe and probably no prize this season as well. Anyway, I hope we have to wait at least another seven years until the next 7-1 loss. Until then, let’s try to win 7-1 for a change, shall we? See, I said Cesena were the ideal snack.

Crush them, humiliate them, destroy them. Let us be the masters of horror for once.