By Petar Todorvski
In the middle of huge problems Roma face with tricky travel in the 23rd round of Serie A. Lupi is maybe the most unpredictable big team in Europe this season. They started bad, but then had a great series of winning points and climbed up to the third place. Now they’re eighth with no victory in last five games, three of them in Serie A.
Roma lost even the first leg in the eighth finals in Champions League against the Ukranian side Shakhtar Donetsk. Lupi were firm favorites, but the Brazilians in the guest team smashed them and brought their team huge 3-2 advantage before the second leg in cold Ukraine.
That made the most passionate Roma fans protest against Coach Claudio Ranieri. They want him to leave, but the Tinkerman is famous for his persistence and expressed his intention to stay at the club: “The protest? I hope for peace, I think that this is just a show of love the fans have for the team. They want to understand why this team finds itself in a negative situation. Will I go? No, I am staying,” he confirmed and then talked in the well known optimistic manner: “I have a team who wants to bounce back in Serie A and in the Champions League, and we need consistent results to do this.”
However, Grifoni are not an easy task when they play at home. On Stadio Comunale Luigi Ferraris they have lost five out of twelve games this season, but only one of those defeats was suffered in last five games, remaining unbeaten by sides like Milan and Lazio in the process. The morale is even higher after the city derby win against Sampdoria, the most important match in the season for Genoa.
There are just a few absentees for this game. Boselli, Destro and Konko are out or the hosts, while for Giallorossi the reserves Pizarro and Adriano are out due to injury and Rossi, De Rossi and Cassetti are suspended.
Genoa will start the game with a lot of confidence after the mentioned derby win and Roma will just try to keep the problems with the results and coach firing out of their heads. Roma play boring football, with quite predictable actions unless Jeremy Menez and Mirko Vucinic try to do something more. We can expect a close game in which Grifoni will try to keep possession and wait for a chance, while Giallorossi would try to be the first to score. If they don’t manage to do so, the frustrations will come and the positive result won’t. Then the post match would be interesting – will Ranieri stay at the club or not.
