lo zio
International
- 24 October 2005
- Palermo
the strong and weak side of roma lie on the same thing: they have no foward and a brutal first touch gameplay.
having no tipycal fowards means that they can't rely on a long passes strategy. there's not a benchmark player upfront (totti often moves back to "dialogue" with perrotta, mancini, de rossi, taddei aquilani or pizarro). this situation forces them to play a "ball on the ground football", with short first touch passes and continous off the ball movements. Of course they have many players with huge technique, so that's not a problem for them.........
but playing always this football is very expensive, talking about energies. So to play this football your players have to be always in a perfect shape.... which is almost impossible, of course.
during the game it happens quite often that the players get tired. the pace decreases, the players have no oxygen to run even whan they haven't the ball and the distance between the sectors of the field (defensive line, midfield line and offensive line) becomes huge (here in italy, when this happens, we say that the teams are "stretched").
when this happens is very important to have a pure foward (preferably a tall foward), so the players can keep the rhytm of the play without moving themselves, just playing with long passes.
this means that, even during the most criticals moments of the match, when the players are getting tired, the team can still take a breathe, keeping the ball in your opponents midfield.
almost every team in europe does it... but roma can't.
so when roma players get tired (or when they aren't in a perfect shape), the opponents crush them, compress them, bringing the ball in roma's midfield.
the other factor is their first touch pass gameplay. their first touch passing game is different from arsenal, lyon, toulouse first touch passing game. roma players don't head the ball toward their teammate current position, they head the ball toward their teammates next position. we could say that they have a "foward looking passing game". this makes their gamestyle great and unpredictable. but this passing system requires a percect harmony between the players and, once again, a perfect fitness condition.
if the players are too tired to run toward the ball next position, then the whole gameplay is screwed up.
there are many teams in europe that have a "foward looking passer". we usually call them "playmakers": juninho, pirlo, pizarro, valeron, deco, altintop, corini (
)but in roma is different. they play this game with all their players... it's like having 10 playmakers on the pitch.... if just one of them miss the ball, then roma loose his strenght.
there's just one team in europe that plays a "roma football"; sevilla.
but, unlike roma, sevilla has a pure, tall foward, like kanoute who can protect the ball, keep the game in the opponents midfield and give a break to his teammates, when tey run out of oxygen.
roma hasn't a player like this.
so as u can see those features that make roma gameplay so beautiful and effective, are also the main reasons of their weak points.
anyway this year roma won't suffer those "ups and downs" moments they had last season. now they have a deep roster, they have excellent backups for each role and they don't have to put their youth team players on the bench anymore
p.s. sorry for the long post guys
EDIT:
sometimes a video tells more than a thousand words. so to have an idea of what i'm talking about, take a look to the first goal they scored against dinamo yesterday....
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=FaAwxyHwnxE
i'm pretty sure now u got what i mean
as u can see each player is running toward his next position (according to spalletti's schemes).... no one is standing on his position.....
but when roma players stand on their position..... then u have "manchester utd - roma"
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because he really looks like lionel messi, and his dribbling ability is brilliant.. but he doesnt know where to pass the ball