A little bit of personal story-time to start this week's Sinners & Saints. Yesterday was the first Roma match that my girlfriend watched all the way through in a serious way. She's a fan of football in general, but follows the NWSL most closely. Thanks to my work with Chiesa di Totti, she knows what's going on in a general way with Roma most of the time, and we've both been thinking for a while that it would be great for us to watch Roma together this season. Her main experience with seeing me follow Roma has been witnessing my frustration: she knows Roma is generally a club with talented players that fail to meet expectations, a club always just on the outside looking in.
Because of some scheduling issues for the first two matches, yesterday was her first time watching a match this season in full (whereas previous seasons, she didn't want to watch because it was "kind of depressing." Fair enough.). 45 minutes in, she was impressed albeit deeply frustrated with Roma's inability to get the ball past Marco Carnesecchi. 85 minutes in, I thought I was introducing her to the apotheosis of what happens when Roma Happens; when no amount of combined talent, no amount of good form, no amount of opportunities on goal seems to be capable of defeating the destiny of Roma to be just one tier below the best of Italian and European football, for eternity.
Then, of course, came the six minutes where Roma turned a 0-1 loss into a 2-1 win. I was on the edge of my seat (literally, my Uber nearly got into an accident) when Matías Soulé scored his stoppage time goal to preserve Roma's perfect record and keep the hopes of something greater for this season alive. I'm still feeling shocked and thrilled that the Giallorossi pulled this one off, and what a game to use to truly introduce my girlfriend to Roma. Roma did concede, and Roma did look as if they were going to lose this one for most of the second half; given that, I had to anoint at least one player a sinner. But make no mistake: this match felt more exciting to me than either of the multi-goal clean sheets that started the season, and in my book is a far better signal for just how high this Roma can go than either the win against Lecce or Fiorentina.
One quick aside before diving into the sinners and saints: my love for Mile Svilar knows no bounds, but if yesterday's match taught me just about anything regarding a non-Roma player, it's that I want Marco Carnesecchi to be Italy's goalkeeper moving forward. What an incredible performance; this one could have and should have been a 5-1 rout, if not for his 9 saves.
He got the game-winner in stoppage time, so he has to be the first saint on the list. MatìGol (can we start calling him that?) put in an excellent shift as a substitute, garnering himself an 8.7 rating from SofaScore after coming on for Rodrigo Mora in the 54th minute and practically willing the Giallorossi to the win. The Argentine attacker had seven total shots, three of which were on target; while
Because of some scheduling issues for the first two matches, yesterday was her first time watching a match this season in full (whereas previous seasons, she didn't want to watch because it was "kind of depressing." Fair enough.). 45 minutes in, she was impressed albeit deeply frustrated with Roma's inability to get the ball past Marco Carnesecchi. 85 minutes in, I thought I was introducing her to the apotheosis of what happens when Roma Happens; when no amount of combined talent, no amount of good form, no amount of opportunities on goal seems to be capable of defeating the destiny of Roma to be just one tier below the best of Italian and European football, for eternity.
Then, of course, came the six minutes where Roma turned a 0-1 loss into a 2-1 win. I was on the edge of my seat (literally, my Uber nearly got into an accident) when Matías Soulé scored his stoppage time goal to preserve Roma's perfect record and keep the hopes of something greater for this season alive. I'm still feeling shocked and thrilled that the Giallorossi pulled this one off, and what a game to use to truly introduce my girlfriend to Roma. Roma did concede, and Roma did look as if they were going to lose this one for most of the second half; given that, I had to anoint at least one player a sinner. But make no mistake: this match felt more exciting to me than either of the multi-goal clean sheets that started the season, and in my book is a far better signal for just how high this Roma can go than either the win against Lecce or Fiorentina.
One quick aside before diving into the sinners and saints: my love for Mile Svilar knows no bounds, but if yesterday's match taught me just about anything regarding a non-Roma player, it's that I want Marco Carnesecchi to be Italy's goalkeeper moving forward. What an incredible performance; this one could have and should have been a 5-1 rout, if not for his 9 saves.
He got the game-winner in stoppage time, so he has to be the first saint on the list. MatìGol (can we start calling him that?) put in an excellent shift as a substitute, garnering himself an 8.7 rating from SofaScore after coming on for Rodrigo Mora in the 54th minute and practically willing the Giallorossi to the win. The Argentine attacker had seven total shots, three of which were on target; while
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