Born in Naples on 03/10/88, graduated in Philosophy and Politics from the Oriental University of Naples. He has been working for TMW since 2008 and was deputy editor for 10 years. Sent to follow the national team
The beginning of the end of Roma’s season has a very specific date: 18 September 2024. After just four days, after a near-miss success on the Genoa pitch, Dan and Ryan Friedkin became protagonists of a dismissal that still today has no rational explanations (and even if it did, they wouldn’t be provided anyway).
De Rossi’s removal from the Roma bench was the beginning of the end not only because only a few weeks earlier his contract had been renewed, but also because with him this summer the foundations had been laid for a project that was supposed to last three-year term and which instead didn’t even last three weeks. A contradiction between words and facts so absurd, so paradoxical, that it cannot find a motivation in the very precarious relationship that existed in those days between De Rossi and Lina Souloukou (later in turn removed).
To explain why this season the Friedkins are writing the manual for the perfect suicide, we need to briefly reconstruct what has happened in recent months. When last January the Roma owners decided to sack the leader José Mourinho, they took a decidedly tortuous road from which they soon emerged only thanks to the decision to focus on Daniele De Rossi to succeed him. Special One. To a poet, to a leader, the Friedkins responded with one of the greatest examples of Romanism in the club’s history. As much as the Giallorossi people were tied to José, no one could ever have contested De Rossi.
So it was, then the results did the rest: Roma with the new coach immediately recovered and even when the wind of change weakened a little no one even dreamed of questioning the quality of the work by De Rossi. Nobody, not even the Friedkins who already announced the renewal of his contract in April, a signature which then materially arrived in June. De Rossi signed an important contract 133 days ago: three years at more than three million per season.
It was supposed to be the beginning of a new era, it was the beginning of the end. However, not before having launched a purchasing campaign that has no precedent in the Friedkin era. Yes, because Roma spent this summer like never before in the recent past. After years of zero parameters, the American owners – under Souloukou management, with Ghisolfi as the new sporting director and above all following the advice of De Rossi – have set up a purchasing campaign that has no equal in recent years. Of the approximately 30 million euros collected, more than a hundred were paid out for these operations (the main ones, ed.).
Artem Dovbyk purchased from Girona for 30.5 million euros
Matias Soule purchased from Juventus for 25.6 million euros
Enzo Le Fée purchased from Rennes for 23.00 million euros
Manu Kone purchased on loan with right to buy from ‘Gladbach for 17 million euros
Angelino bought back by Leipzig for 5.2 million euros
Samuel Dahl purchased from Djurgarden for 4.3 million euros
Saud Abdulhamid purchased from Al Hilal for 2.5 million euros
Mats Hummels signed as a free agent
Mario Hermoso signed as a free agent
After a renewal for three seasons, after a signing campaign of this kind, it was reasonable to think that the Friedkins would have given De Rossi time to build the new group, to set the new team on track. But no. De Rossi’s was the first dismissal of the 2024/25 Serie A, which came thanks to Souloukou’s push and was then well received by Friedkin. An unfortunate choice.
Ivan Juric was inserted into this scenario, whose only fault was to be enticed by the importance of the square. Without the charisma and the showcase of José Mourinho, without the Romanism of Daniele De Rossi, the Croatian coach has been a dead man walking. Put there to do everything possible, especially as a lightning rod. Thrown on the bench and in front of the cameras to take on blame that isn’t his.
Since Juric arrived, not only has he failed to take the path to “Aim for trophies” (cit.), but as expected he has not even improved the situation of a Roma team which after eleven days has already abdicated any Scudetto dream and will hardly will finish in the top four. Not only that: the path in the Europa League today says four points in three matches and the environmental situation is more complicated than ever. A climate of protest that has nothing to do with the full houses that the Olimpico regularly recorded with first Mourinho and then De Rossi.
At this point Juric’s days are already numbered: he will reasonably last two more games at the helm of Roma, then the time to say goodbye will come for him too. It is highly probable that during the break the Friedkins will be the protagonists of another coaching change: the third of 2024, the second in just over two months. Time will tell if it will be of any use, but today the feelings are negative. The road taken has no way out: there doesn’t seem to be room even for a miracle.