Is AS Roma the Barca of Rome?

It is understandable if one chooses to receive this statement with utter incredulity when both Roma and Barcelona are put together in the same sentence. To digress slightly, even Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons agrees on this: “Anything that’s the ‘something’ of the ‘something’ isn’t really the ‘anything’ of ‘anything’.”

Also, it is futile to pontificate Roma’s style of play with heat maps and drawing boards. The exoskeletons of Barcelona and Roma are similar. Both play under a 4-3-3 formation, and the comparison doesn’t end here.

Roma is structured on the same pass-and-move style of FC Barcelona. Their full-backs, Federico Balzaretti and Ivan Piris, are more like wingers. They have a strong holding midfielder in Daniel De Rossi/Panagiotis Tachtsidis. Their wingers move towards the center of the pitch, narrowing down the play. Their attacking trident – Fransesco Totti, Erik Lamela, Pablo Osvaldo – is as powerful as Posiedon’s.

Watching Roma play at the Stadio Olympico is perhaps the best solution to the question posed above.

Last night, the Coppa Italia first-leg match against Inter Milan at the Olympico is enough proof of what Roma are capable of achieving this season.

Just 30 minutes into the game, both sets of players looked exhausted: their jerseys were soaked in sweat; players were gasping for breath; yet Roma did not wilt under the pace of the game they had just set.

The ferocity of Roma’s wave-after-wave of attack could have even tanked a WW2 Soviet warship. Their synchronicity of movement would even compel talent show judges to award them a perfect score of 10. Zdenek Zeman’s appointment has done wonders for this team.

Since the time Zeman returned for a second spell at Roma, they have failed to score just twice in the 24 games (all competitions) that they played so far this season. Zeman injected Roma with an attacking verve, but the only side effect is that their defence is more porous than a sponge.

Roma have scored 50 goals in domestic competitions – the highest number of goals in Serie A, and one more than table topper Juventus. Also, they have the second highest number of shots (17) per game in Serie A.

Yet, they find themselves struggling in seventh place in the league table, despite scoring more goals in the league than the second and third-placed teams. Why? Because Roma have the third-worst defensive record in the league; only behind Cagliari and Pescara – a team which Zeman lead to promotion before joining Roma. Moreover, both teams are fighting to avoid the drop.

It is easy to point fingers at Roma’s Brazilian centre-backs, but without them the team may not maintain the same attacking thrust. Both Maquinhos and Leandro Castan have been a joy to watch this season. Roma frequently play the offside trap due to the forward excursions of their centre-backs. Perhaps, Zeman must drop his high defensive line strategy once Roma takes the lead.

He complained to the Italian press last week that Roma needed to close out games once they took the lead. But maintaining the same pressure-cooker attack in a bid to stifle the opposition is close to impossible.

Zeman also names the same players in the starting XI week-in, week-out. His training methods drew flak in the past for wearing out the players. If there are any lessons that need to be learnt from Athletic Bilbao about how to not collapse in the end after a Barca-esque showing for most of the season, then Zeman must learn it by heart.

Roma started the new year with two consecutive league defeats, but are slowly finding back their form. They are nine points away from a Champions League spot, and are in contention for the Coppa Italia title. Rest assured, they will not end this season with either of those two.