A Review of Roma's 2013-14 Midfield

2013/14 was an overwhelming success. Not only were there limited effigies of American executives burning in the stands, Roma got their on-field swagger back. Gone were the confused lateral passes, so too the hopelessly exposed defensive line.

This year flickered the nostalgia for the days where Roma passed and ran their way with a rhythm that not only overwhelmed scrambling defences both Italian and European, but brought a smile to the face of the true believers. No matter where they stood on the table, our team was the one to watch and viewers both neutral and tifosi were rewarded with terrific team interplay blended with flashes of sheer individual brilliance.

Ladies and gentleman, Roma is back. And they’re going places (European ones!).

Whilst it goes without saying, Roma’s defence was nothing short of superb this year, it was the renaissance of the midfield that splashed Rudi Garcia’s mark on 13/14. Cast your minds back to the Zeman experiment and the Andreazzoli catastrophe.

The link between attack and defence was shakily unconvincing at best and utterly hair wrenching at worst. Pjanic could barely get a game, that greek kid with the first name that starts with P was kicking balls into the stands while De Rossi sulked on the bench and the bald Captain America ran up and down the pitch passing the ball to the opposition at the critical moment of most attacks. Florenzi was the only shining light in a bleak, bleak landscape.

This was a team sans happiness. When the starting midfield was changing every other week and teams like Cagliari were carving them up at the Olimpico, change was needed.

Fortunately the American owners weren’t too shy about approaching the free market to address the situation. And with the backroom of Rudi Garcia and Walter Sabatini dictating the ebb and flow of the cheque book (yeah, Americans still use cheques, can you believe that shit!) this was the perfect opportunity for Roma to hitch a ride on the freedom bus of capitalism.

What do those colourful metaphors actually mean?

Pjanic’s Roman future was secured, Rudi Garcia took firm control of a problem area and Sabatini brought in the Dutch goliath, Kevin Strootman to set this team up for success. The rest, as they say, is mere detail.

Daniele De Rossi

Daniele De Rossi. Il Capitano Futuro. A dynamo for the Italian national team, a troubled shadow in giallo e rossi. This season, the rebirth of Roma’s midfield coincided 100% with the renewal of a hungrier and firing DDR. I’m not sure what Rudi told him over the summer, but whatever it was bottle that shit and sell it to Google, because damn it worked.

Patrolling in front of the strengthened back four, DDR turned the clock back to his LE era domination. Quite simply, he was Roma’s Marvel Superhero (I wanted to say Batman, but that goalkeeper guy sort of owns that). Whenever trouble lurked, particularly following a turnover higher up the field, DDR was there with his crunching challenges often winning the ball back and throwing the opposition back on their heels with a 89.5% pass completion average for the season.

De Rossi also brought the flair back to his game, regularly performing sombrero’s over the top of attacking mids in the heat of battle. He was also a solid threat on goal. I lost count of the amount of times he had headers cleared off the line from corners or shots from distance (I’m not Bren so count them yourself). And of course, who could forget the first game of the season when he blasted that screamer into the net against Livorno for the first goal for Rudi’s Roma. The one where Sabatini threw his head into his hands, cuing fits of panic amongst the skittish tifosi that this was surely a sign of an imminent departure of our bearded warrior. Naaaaaaahhhhhhttttt!