AS Roma Part Ways with Daniele de Rossi after Eight Months in Charge
It has been nearly nine months since Daniele De Rossi replaced Jose Mourinho as AS Roma’s manager. Since then, he has guided Roma to the UEFA Europa League semifinals and a sixth-place finish, prompting Roma to not only give him the permanent job and back him with several blockbuster signings like Matías Soulé, Artem Dovbyk, and Mats Hummels. And yet, four games into the 2024/25 season, De Rossi has been sacked.
The club legend received his marching orders in the same manner as his predecessor — early in the morning before training and with the players finding out on social media. His dismissal has not sit well with supporters — either on social media or in the Italian capital. Fans rushed to Trigoria the club’s training centre in Rome to voice their outrage, and on Sunday, Lina Souloukou stepped down from her position as CEO due to the significant fan backlash.
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Their footballers have not gotten off easy either — several fans have voiced their displeasure by screaming obscenities at underperforming players, and even club captain Lorenzo Pellegrini was chased down after leaving Trigoria on Wednesday evening. Both Pellegrini and Bryan Cristante have been marmite characters in the Roma fanbase despite playing for the club since 2017, going through Eusebio Di Francesco, Claudio Ranieri, Paulo Fonseca, Mourinho and now De Rossi as head coaches, and whilst they have both seemed untouchable, that may be changing soon.
De Rossi had big shoes to fill after replacing Mourinho in January — who was in the last six months of his contract — stepping in for the Portuguese coach after he had steered Roma to back-to-back sixth-place finishes in Serie A and back-to-back European finals, one of which saw them beat Feyenoord in the first-ever UEFA Europa Conference League Final. Mourinho had come under fire due to a spate of unconvincing results, with a loss to Lazio in the Coppa Italia quarterfinals as well as a league defeat to Milan proving to be the final nail in the coffin.
The Giallorossi were quickly transformed by De Rossi’s arrival and were even challenging to return to the UEFA Champions League for the first time in six seasons, but they would take their foot off the gas in the final weeks with just two wins from their last eight matches. Roma looked set to avenge their UEFA Europa League Final penalty shootout defeat, beating Feyenoord on penalties, beating Brighton & Hove Albion 4-1, before dispatching AC Milan 3-1 to reach the semifinals.
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Bayer Leverkusen were seeking revenge after losing in last year’s semifinal, and they did just that. Roma found themselves 10 minutes away from extra time after two penalties from Leandro Paredes saw them erase a two-goal deficit, but Gianluca Mancini scored an own goal to put Leverkusen in front, whilst Josip Stanisic’s stoppage-time winner saw Die Werkself maintain their unbeaten run. They would book their ticket for the UEFA Europa League Final, where they fell to a 3-0 defeat to Atalanta.
It was clear that Roma needed a big rebuilding job and they did just that. All of the loanees from last season — Romelu Lukaku, Ramus Kristensen, Diego Llorente, Renato Sanches, Sardar Azmoun and Dean Huisjen — returned to their parent clubs, whilst two veterans Leonardo Spinazzola and Rui Patricio were allowed to depart on free transfers, joining Napoli and Atalanta, respectively. Whilst freeing up their wage bill, Roma also delivered a summer spending spree in their first window under ex-Nice and ex-Lens sporting director Florent Ghisolfi, who replaced the outgoing Tiago Pinto as the club’s new sporting director.
Roma spent big in the summer transfer window with Matthew Ryan (free), Angeliño, Saud Abdulhamid, Baba Sangare, Samuel Dahl, Manu Koné (loan), Matías Soulé, Enzo Le Fée, Alexis Saelemaekers (loan) and Artem Dovbyk arriving in the window. In total, Roma spent €92.6 million on new signings, whilst they also managed to sign two of the most coveted free agents on the market after the window had closed — Mats Hummels and Mário Hermoso.
Roma gutted their squad in the summer window with Houssem Aouar, Chris Smalling and João Costa heading to Saudia Arabia, whilst Andrea Belotti packed his bags for newly promoted Como. Marash Kumbulla and Ola Solbakken joined Espanyol and Empoli on loan, respectively, whilst Tammy Abraham joined Milan on loan as part of the Saelemaekers deal. Edoardo Bove also joined Fiorentina on loan, much to the chagrin of many Roma fans who were loathe to see a born-and-bred Roma player depart for a domestic rival.
There was also the drama with Paulo Dybala and Nicola Zalewski’s nearly departures. Paulo Dybala almost left Rome and to take a massive payday in Saudi Arabia with Al-Qadsiah offering an eye watering £64 million over three years. Dybala rejected the deal and chose to stay with Roma. Nicola Zalewski was offered out to both PSV and Galatasaray and rejected both deals from both clubs to remain, despite the Italian transfer window already closing, and this would see Zalewski frozen out of the first-team squad.
Roma started the season poorly with three draws and one defeat in the opening four games of the season, kicking off the campaign with a goalless stalemate at Cagliari which saw Dybala make a late cameo off the bench. They suffered a shock defeat to Empoli in their home opener, delivering a passive performance on all fronts and being punished by a clinical Empoli side that has proven plenty of people wrong.
After dropping points to two teams that only barely avoided relegation last season, Roma needed to step up before the international break, and they did just that by holding Juventus to a goalless draw in Turin. The Giallorossi were defensively astute and shut out a Juventus attack that had scored six goals in their opening two matches.
De Rossi had a squad built to play a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1, and whilst he utilized these formations in preseason and the opening three matches of the campaign, he abandoned it to use a 3-5-2 at Genoa, which morphed into a 5-4-1 in the final stages of the game. Roma returned from the break with a match against Genoa, which pitted De Rossi against his former Italy teammate Alberto Gilardino.
Artem Dovbyk gave Roma the lead after opening his account in Italian football, but Genoa would bounce back in the second half and put Roma on the backfoot. They pushed them deeper and deeper in their own half and finally got their just rewards in the 96th minute as Koni De Winter equalized for the hosts.
De Rossi was sent off in the aftermath of the goal, and as fate would have it, his last action as a Roma manager would see him run off the pitch from the Marassi side to the tunnel. The Friedkin ownership relieved him of his duties and appointed Ivan Juric, causing uproar on social media and in the streets of Rome, especially in Trigoria.
Both Gianluca Mancini and Pellegrini reportedly tried to get De Rossi reinstated, but it was too late. After just one win in their last 10 league matches, De Rossi’s time in charge has come to an end. It seems that off-the-field problems proved just as fatal for the legendary midfielder — the board allegedly wanted De Rossi to use Dybala less, which nearly promoted De Rossi to resign, whilst the freezing-out of Zalewski also left a sour taste in his mouth.
De Rossi purportedly attempted to bring in Raoul Bellanova in order to sort out their issues at right back — instead, he ended up joining Atalanta. And despite the Roma board’ desire for Dybala to not play so as to avoid automatically extending his contract, he continued to field the Argentine. Ultimately though, his broken relationship with CEO Lina Souloukou was the final nail in the coffin.
By: Scot Munroe / @scot_munroe
Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Fabio Rossi / AS Roma