Roma Fans Furious As Daniele De Rossi Dismissed & Ivan Juric Steps In
‘OUTRAGE’ read Thursday’s front page of Il Romanista. The AS Roma-devoted outlet captured the mood amongst the Giallorossi fanbase in the wake of a managerial departure that nobody saw coming nor, indeed, wanted. ‘Oltraggio’, which can also be translated as ‘contempt’ or ‘indignity,’ appropriately sums up the nature of the dismissal, not simply of a coach but an icon and an epitome of Romanismo.
An Icon Departing
If the writing was on the wall, then it was spelled out with invisible ink that only the Friedkins (Roma’s owners) held the flashlight for. Despite a poor start to the season, De Rossi was less than three months into a three-year contract signed as recently as June.
Although they were winless from their opening four, having lost one and drawn the rest of their initial fixtures, there was no suspicion of, or appetite for, a change of coach. Roma may have been in a stasis, but not a crisis. They entered the international break following a valiant point away at Juventus, which can never be sniffed at. They then resumed league play at Morassi, their third away match in four, where a 96th-minute equalizer from Genoa kept the visiting Romanisti from winning (and keeping a third clean sheet).
Marquee signing Artem Dovbyk, La Liga’s top goalscorer last season, even opened his Roman account on Sunday in the Ligurian port city. The Ukrainian striker was part of a €92.6 million outlay in the summer designed to provide De Rossi’s project with the best chance of a Champions League finish. However, 19 days and two games after the window closed, before the dust on the spending spree had remotely settled, the club opted to uproot an entire project and start afresh.
Wednesday morning’s announcement left the neutral bemused and the passionate Roma tifoseria dumbstruck. Daniele de Rossi, too, was caught off guard. He had arrived to Trigoria, the club’s training base, at 7:30am (via La Gazzetta dello Sport), to prepare with his staff for the day’s session, set to commence at 10:30. Soon, he was summoned in for a top-floor meeting with some top-shelf people.
Present were Dan Friedkin, the Texan club president and CEO of the Friedkin Group (the entity that owns AS Roma), along with Lina Souloukou, the club’s general manager and CEO, whose relationship with the now-departed coach was reportedly fractured. Also in the room was Ryan Friedkin, son of Dan, the mysterious ‘nepo baby’ Vice President, whose trigger-happy tendency gives him an heir of Succession’s Roman Roy.
Faced with this tortuous trio, according to the recount of events in La Gazzetta dello Sport, Daniele already knew why he was there. As the pink-paged sports daily continues, he had heard whispers of his impending faith the previous night at dinner with some friends as rumours began to swirl around the Roman night.
In the Eternal City, faint murmurs of nefarious American dealings gathered steam and were later corroborated by reports by corrieredellosport.it that the club had contacted ex-Milan boss Stefano Pioli on Tuesday night to offer him the soon-to-be vacant role. Pioli, however, had already packed his bags for Riyadh, where he was just about to sign a well-compensated deal to become the new coach of Al-Nassr (out of purely sporting motivations…).
The Friedkin’s were undeterred in their desire to plough a new furrow, and by 8:58 am on Wednesday morning, the news was official. Daniele de Rossi, who for so long in his playing career under the wing of Francesco Totti, was nicknamed ‘Il Capitano Futuro’—the Future Captain—was now the manager of their past. A sense of dèja-vu was not lost on several Italian sports pages that drew similarities with the sacking of Josè Mourinho last January. He too suffered a surprise dismissal, early in the morning, with his replacement already in situ for a hastily rearranged training session later that afternoon. It was, as Gazzetta’s Francesco Balzani terms it, a sacking “in full Friedkin style.”
Mourning The Loss of a Legend
Then, like now, the ever-loyal Romanisti mourned the loss of an idolised managerial figure, blaming the board for a lack of support, while calling out certain players for a lack of application and hunger. Josè later chastised his former employers by complaining that he was fired by “people who know nothing of football”.
One Roma fan group pointed out that De Rossi could echo that sentiment and modify it by adding that he was fired by “people who know nothing of football OR OF ROMA”. The same group, the Roma Supporters Club of Berlin, reflected the emotions of their Giallorosso brothers in their maternal city by erecting a banner in the German capital exclaiming, “You don’t touch the sons of Roma!”
The Roma Club Montecitorio , meanwhile, also expressed support for the stricken DDR, calling for the club to “show their face” and explain the decision whilst emphatically stating that, “Roma deserves better.” Goodwill for De Rossi and disdain for the ownership were the overriding sensations in the fallout from Wednesday’s announcement.
Il Romanista described it as “a decision that left an entire fanbase incredulous and wounded… a disgrace to Romanismo.” In 1349, an earthquake shook the city and tore down the Colloseum, one of its greatest icons. On Wednesday, there were tremors once more as a unforeseen event broke another Rome icon. After 775 years of tranquillity, suddenly twice in the space of eight months, the Friedkins’ very own seismic activity has left the earth to tremble in Trigoria.
As touched upon, the fans have made known their feelings on the De Rossi affair. The Roma legend received cheers from around 20 fans as he left the Fulvio Bernardini training facility for good for the second time in his life. He stopped in his car to pose for photos and appreciate the words of comfort from those with whom he shares an enduring bond.
Later that evening, members of the Curva Sud—the lifeblood of the Stadio Olimpico on a Roma matchday—appeared on the street beneath DDR’s city centre apartment with red flares and chants of solidarity such as “Daniele: One of Our Own.”. A banner was also held up addressed to the club’s hierarchy, lambasting “incompetent beggars that don’t deserve these people.”
Pressure On Friedkin & the New Boss
The pressure is now well and truly on the ownership to improve the fortunes of a team that, for all their investment, have finished 6th in three consecutive seasons. In total, the Friedkins have ploughed in nearly €1 billion since their acquisition in 2020.
Despite this, the club’s overall value has barely increased in that period, only rising from €591m to €604m in the intervening period, judging by the most recent reports via Statista and Football Benchmark. On top of this, the club’s accounts have been in a constant deficit since the takeover, with negative figures of -185 million euros in 2020-21, -219 million in 2021-22, and -103 million in 2022-23. Getting rid of De Rossi will only add to the list of debtors, with him and his staff reportedly owed €24 million over the next three years of the contract agreed in June.
The man parachuted into the Roma dugout is Ivan Juric. The Croatian coach who spent the last three years at Torino took charge of his first training session on Wednesday afternoon, with the musk of his predecessor’s cologne still lingering in the air of the manager’s office at Trigoria. His agent had only arrived at the training centre at 12:30 to sort out the terms of a €2 million deal until the end of the season with the condition of an extension to 2026 should the team pull off an unlikely qualification for the Champions League.
To achieve this, Juric will need to make an instant impact at the Olimpico to stem the growing discontent on the terraces. Not only is he arriving into a dressing room yet to record a win this campaign, but one that has only managed a single victory in their last 11 competitive games dating back to April.
The underwhelming end to the season just gone was no doubt a contributory factor to DDR’s dismissal. After a resurgent run in the early spring, Roma’s momentum and energy began to drain soon after the Europa League quarterfinal victory over AC Milan—arguably the apogee of De Rossi’s short-lived tenure alongside their first victory over rivals Lazio in two years. To underline the tumultuous nature of Roman football, the next Derby della Capitale will see a third completely different managerial match-up in the last three encounters. However, going from Mourinho v. Sarri to De Rossi v. Tudor to, now, Juric v. Baroni also emphasises a significant step-down in the grandeur and prestige of the city’s premier coaches.
The thought process of Juric’s appointment was briefed to be focused on the search for a manager in the Gasperini-mould who could enforce an intense brand of football whilst bringing through young players. The Croat is one of several apprentices of the Gian Piero Gasperini school of coaching, having played under the current Atalanta boss at Genoa before becoming his assistant for spells at Inter and Palermo.
Juric’s ‘Calcio alla Gasp’ will make its debut at the Olimpico on Sunday evening against table-topping Udinese. Much like his mentor, the former Torino and Verona coach favours a back-three, which would be a return to the system Mourinho favoured in his Roma days. De Rossi tried to implement a 4-3-3; however, in what turned out to be his final game at Genoa, he reverted to a three-man defence which may well better suit this crop of players.
The atmosphere on Sunday could be a strange introduction to Roman life for the new ‘Mister’ (the Italian equivalent of ‘Gaffer’), with the ultras planning a protest against the ownership for the perceived mistreatment of their fallen hero. Either way, it may prove a useful initiation for Juric, who will quickly find out that in Rome, as tension bubbles, the temperature can quickly reach boiling point and is never lower than a simmer.
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