Roma’s progress under Gian Piero Gasperini is increasingly being measured in the fixtures that once exposed their limits. Results against the leading sides, long a drag on the club’s Champions League ambitions, have become a source of points, confidence and a clearer sense of the team’s place in the Serie A race.
Key takeaways
- Roma have taken 17 points from their last seven matches against direct rivals, an average of 2.43 per game.
- The run began after an April defeat to Inter, which remains the Giallorossi’s most recent loss in a major head-to-head contest.
- In the previous five years, Roma collected 93 points from 90 such matches, averaging only 1.03 points.
- This season, victories and results against Fiorentina, Atalanta and Inter have added seven more points to the turnaround.
- Roma return from the international break with an away trip to Como, followed two weeks later by Napoli at the Maradona.
From a recurring weakness to a Champions League platform
For several seasons, Roma’s difficulty against clubs regularly involved in European competition helped explain why Champions League qualification remained beyond reach. Across 90 matches against those opponents over the preceding five years, the return was 93 points: a total that left the side with little margin when the table tightened.
The decisive change came following the heavy setback against Inter in April. Rather than setting off another damaging sequence, that defeat became a dividing line. Roma responded by taking 10 points from four direct meetings, winning three and drawing one without another defeat.
Those points carried considerable weight in the final shape of the season, helping Roma secure third place and a Champions League berth. The improvement has been attributed to the daily work under Gasperini, a tactical framework that the players have absorbed more fully, and a squad that has developed stronger connections as the campaign has moved on.
The broader five-year calculation is still held down by the earlier period. Roma now stand on 113 points from 102 meetings with European-level rivals, for an average of 1.11 per fixture. Yet the recent sequence points to a markedly different team: one better prepared, more settled and increasingly convinced it can compete when the opposition is strongest.
Como and Napoli offer the next tests
The opening part of the current season has reinforced that sense of continuity. Roma have already earned seven points from matches with Fiorentina, Atalanta and Inter, extending the post-April recovery rather than treating it as a short-lived surge.
There is little time for the group to dwell on the figures. After the break, Roma travel to Como, returning to a ground where they were beaten last season. Two weeks later comes the visit to Napoli at the Maradona, a fixture that ended level last February.
That Napoli draw had already suggested a side moving in the right direction, although Malen was still finding his footing and the team had not yet reached its present level of collective understanding. Roma now approach the next pair of demanding appointments with more established patterns, a more experienced group and evidence that they can remain composed in matches that shape a season.
