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| Full name | Associazione Sportiva Roma S.p.A. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | I Giallorossi (The Yellow and Reds) La Lupa (The She-Wolf) La Magica (The Magic One) Capitolini (Capitoline) Lupetti (Little Cubs) Lupi (Wolves) | |||
| Founded | 7 June 1927 (as Italo Foschi) | |||
| Ground | Stadio Olimpico | |||
| Capacity | 70,634[1] | |||
| Owner | The Friedkin Group (95.97%) | |||
| President | Dan Friedkin | |||
| Head coach | Daniele De Rossi | |||
| League | Serie A | |||
| 2023–24 | Serie A, 6th of 20 | |||
| Website | Club website | |||
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Associazione Sportiva Roma (Rome Sport Association; Italian pronunciation: [ˈroːma]) is a professional football club based in Rome, Italy. Founded by a merger in 1927, Roma has participated in the top tier of Italian football for all of its existence, except for the 1951–52 season. Roma has won Serie A three times, in 1941–42, 1982–83 and 2000–01, as well as nine Coppa Italia titles and two Supercoppa Italiana titles. In European competitions, Roma won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1960–61 and the UEFA Europa Conference League in 2021–22, while they finished runners-up in the 1983–84 European Cup, the 1990–91 UEFA Cup and the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League.
Sixteen players have won the FIFA World Cup while playing at Roma: Attilio Ferraris and Enrique Guaita (1934); Guido Masetti and Eraldo Monzeglio (1934 and 1938); Aldo Donati and Pietro Serantoni (1938); Bruno Conti (1982); Rudi Völler and Thomas Berthold (1990); Aldair (1994); Vincent Candela (1998); Cafu (2002); Daniele De Rossi, Simone Perrotta and Francesco Totti (2006); Paulo Dybala (2022).
Since 1953, Roma has played home matches at the Stadio Olimpico, a venue the club shares with city rivals Lazio. With a capacity of over 72,000, the stadium is the second-largest of its kind in Italy, with only the San Siro able to seat more. The club plans to move to a new stadium, though it is yet to start construction. Having a strong local rivalry, Roma and Lazio contest the Derby della Capitale.
The club's home colours are carmine red and golden yellow, which gives Roma its nickname "I Giallorossi" ("The Yellow and Reds"). These colours have often been combined with white shorts. The club badge features a she-wolf, an allusion to the founding myth of Rome.
History[edit]
Foundation[edit]
AS Roma was founded in the spring of 1927 when Italo Foschi[2] initiated the merger of three older Italian Football Championship clubs from the city of Rome: Roman FC, SS Alba-Audace and Fortitudo-Pro Roma SGS.[2] Foschi was an important Roman representative of the ruling National Fascist Party.[3][4]
The purpose of the merger was to give the Italian capital a strong club to rival that of the more dominant Northern Italian clubs of the time.[2] The only major Roman club to resist the merger was Lazio because of the intervention of the army General Vaccaro, a member of the club and executive of Italian Football Federation (FIGC). All three founding clubs were relegated, but the fascist-aligned FIGC bet over the capacity of the new team to give a stronger representation to the capital of Italy, and they were awarded a wild card for the Divisione Nazionale, the Serie A forerunner. The club played its earliest seasons at the Motovelodromo Appio stadium,[5] before settling in the working-class streets of Testaccio, where it built an all-wooden ground Campo Testaccio; this was opened in November 1929.[6] An early season in which Roma made a large mark was the 1930–31 championship, where the club finished as runners-up behind Juventus.[7] Captain Attilio Ferraris, along with Guido Masetti, Fulvio Bernardini and Rodolfo Volk, were highly important players during this period.[8]
First title victory and decline[edit]
After a slump in league form and the departure of high key players, Roma eventually rebuilt their squad, adding goalscorers such as the Argentine Enrique Guaita.[9] Under the management of Luigi Barbesino, the Roman club came close to their first title in 1935–36, finishing just one point behind champions Bologna.[10]
Roma returned to form after being inconsistent for much of the late 1930s. Roma recorded an unexpected title triumph in the 1941–42 season by winning their first scudetto title.[11] The 18 goals scored by local player Amedeo Amadei were essential to the Alfréd Schaffer-coached Roma side winning the title. At the time, Italy was involved in World War II and Roma were playing at the Stadio Nazionale PNF.[12]
In the years just after the war, Roma were unable to recapture their league stature from the early 1940s. Roma finished in the lower half of Serie A for five seasons in a row, before eventually succumbing to their only ever relegation to Serie B at the end of the 1950–51 season,[7][13] around a decade after their championship victory. Under future Italy national team manager Giuseppe Viani, promotion straight back up was achieved.[14]
After returning to the Serie A, Roma managed to stabilise themselves as a top-half club again with players such as Egisto Pandolfini, Dino da Costa and Dane Helge Bronée.[7] Their best finish of this period was under the management of Englishman Jesse Carver, when in 1954–55, they finished as runners-up after Udinese, who originally finished second, were relegated for corruption.[7] Although Roma were unable to break into the top four during the following decade, they did achieve some measure of cup success. Their first honour outside of Italy was recorded in 1960–61 when Roma won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup by defeating Birmingham City 4–2 in the finals.[15] A few years later, Roma won their first Coppa Italia trophy in 1963–64 after defeating Torino 1–0.[16]
Their lowest point came during the 1964–65 season, when manager Juan Carlos Lorenzo announced the club could not pay its players and was unlikely to be able to afford to travel to Vicenza to fulfil its next fixture. Supporters kept the club going with a fundraiser at the Sistine Theatre and bankruptcy was avoided with the election of a new club president Franco Evangelisti.
Their second Coppa Italia trophy was won in 1968–69, when it competed in a small, league-like system.[16] Giacomo Losi set a Roma appearance record in 1969 with 450 appearances in all competitions, a record that would last 38 years.[17]
Time of mixed fortunes from the 1970s to the 1990s[edit]
Roma were able to add another cup to their collection in 1972, with a 3–1 victory over Blackpool in the Anglo-Italian Cup.[18] During much of the 1970s, Roma's appearance in the top half of Serie A was sporadic. The best place the club were able to achieve during the decade was third in 1974–75.[7] Notable players who turned out for the club during this period included midfielders Giancarlo De Sisti and Francesco Rocca.
The dawning of a newly successful era in Roma's footballing history was brought in with another Coppa Italia victory; they defeated Torino on penalties to win the 1979–80 edition.[16] Roma would reach heights in the league which they had not touched since the 1940s by narrowly and controversially finishing as runners-up to Juventus in 1980–81.[19] Former Milan player Nils Liedholm was the manager at the time, with players such as Bruno Conti, Agostino Di Bartolomei, Roberto Pruzzo and Falcão.[20]
The second scudetto did not elude Roma for much longer. In 1982–83, the Roman club won the title for the first time in 41 years, amidst celebrations in the capital.[21] The following season, Roma finished as runners-up in Italy[7] and collected a Coppa Italia title;[16] they also finished as runners-up in the European Cup final of 1984.[22] The European Cup final with Liverpool ended in a 1–1 draw with a goal from Pruzzo, but Roma eventually lost in the penalty shoot-out.[22] Roma's successful run in the 1980s would finish with a runners-up spot in 1985–86[7] and a Coppa Italia victory, beating out Sampdoria 3–2.[16]
After, a comparative decline began in the league, one of the few league highs from the following period being a third-place finish in 1987–88.[7] At the start of the 1990s, the club was involved in an all-Italian UEFA Cup final, where they lost 2–1 to Internazionale in 1991.[23] The same season, the club won its seventh Coppa Italia[16] and ended runners-up to Sampdoria in the Supercoppa Italiana. Aside from finishing runners-up to Torino in a Coppa Italia final,[16] the rest of the decade was largely sub-par in the history of Roma, particularly in the league, where the highest they could manage was fourth in 1997–98.[7] The early 1990s also saw the emergence of homegrown striker Francesco Totti, who would go on to be an important member of the team and the club's iconic captain.
Third scudetto in the Sensi era[edit]
Roma won their third Serie A title in 2000–01. The Scudetto was won on the last day of the season after defeating Parma 3–1, edging Juventus by two points.[7] The club's captain, Francesco Totti, was a large reason for the title victory and he would become one of the main heroes in the club's history,[20] going on to break several club records.[20] Other important players during this period included: Aldair, Cafu, Gabriel Batistuta and Vincenzo Montella.[24]
In the 2001–02 Serie A, Roma ended as runners-up to Juventus by one point.[7] This would be the start of Roma finishing as runners-up several times in both Serie A and Coppa Italia during the 2000s – they lost out 4–2 to Milan in the Coppa Italia final of 2003[16] and lost to Milan again by finishing second in Serie A for the 2003–04 season.[7] The club also re-capitalized several time in 2003–04 season. In November 2003, €37.5 million was injected by "Roma 2000" to cover the half-year loss and loss carried from previous year.[25] and again on 30 June for €44.57 million.[26] Through stock market, a further €19.850 million of new shares issued, and at the year end, the share capital was €19.878 million,[27] which was unchanged as of 2011[update]. The following season also saw the departure of Walter Samuel for €25 million and Emerson for €28 million, which decreased the strength of the squad. The Giallorossi finished in eighth place, one of the worst of recent seasons.
On 9 July 2006, Roma's Francesco Totti, Daniele De Rossi and Simone Perrotta were part of the Italy national team which defeated France in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final.[28] In the Calciopoli scandal of 2006, Roma were not one of the teams involved. After punishments were issued, Roma was re-classified as runners-up for 2005–06,[29] the same season they finished second in the Coppa Italia losing to Internazionale.[16] In the two following seasons, 2006–07 and 2007–08, Roma finished as Serie A runners-up, meaning that in the 2000s, Roma finished in the top two positions more than any other decade in their history.[30] Meanwhile, in the UEFA Champions League during both of these seasons, they reached the quarter-finals before going out to Manchester United. In the 2008–09 Champions League, Roma reached the knockout stage ahead of Chelsea in their group, thus finishing for the first time in their history as winners of the group stage. However, they lost to Arsenal in the knockout stage on penalty kicks.
After a disappointing start to the 2009–10 season, Claudio Ranieri replaced Luciano Spalletti as head coach. At the time of the switch, Roma lay bottom of the Serie A table after losses to Juventus and Genoa. Despite this setback, Roma went on unbeaten streak of 24 matches in the league – with the last of the 24 being a 2–1 win over rivals Lazio, whereby they came from 1–0 down at half-time to defeat their city rivals after Ranieri substituted both Totti and De Rossi at the interval.[31] The Giallorossi were on top of the table at one point, before a loss to Sampdoria later in the season. Roma would finish runners-up to Internazionale yet again in both Serie A and the Coppa Italia. During the 2000s, Roma had finally recaptured the Scudetto, two Coppa Italia trophies, and their first two Supercoppa Italiana titles. Other notable contributions to the club's history have included a return to the Champions League quarter-finals (in the 2006–07 and 2007–08 editions) since 1984, six runners up positions in the league, four Coppa Italia finals and three Supercoppa finals – marking Roma's greatest ever decade.