No Francesco Totti: he is injured. No Daniele De Rossi: he is suspended. The rest have been grounded in the practice camp in Trigoria by order of the president, Rosella Sensi. So what is new at Roma? Their current crisis is already carrying all the symptoms of their last two or three, with the captain's habitually fragile knees and the vice captain's typical indiscipline just the tip of what appears to be a rapidly melting iceberg.
Roma play Bologna this afternoon after a dreadful fortnight. They have lost their last three matches in Serie A, sit two points above the relegation positions, and fans have been congregating around Trigoria to sloganise and declaim against spoilt stars and what they regard as inadequate boardroom leadership.
A shareholders' meeting on Thursday descended into a night of heckling against Sensi, and although no one is yet blaming a head coach, Claudio Ranieri, who has only been in the job for six weeks, a sudden nostalgia has also afflicted some fans. The nobility of Sensi's father, the previous president, was lauded at the raucous shareholders' event; so was the reign of Ranieri's predecessor, Luciano Spalletti, who was sacked in September after one bad start to a season too many.
It is hard not to feel for Ranieri, and not simply because he is so good at presenting a genial, likeable and professional side to himself. Corralled at Trigoria with his players, he is defiant.
"We will come out of this tunnel," he maintained, "and this same group of players were doing well as team until recently, so they can do so again." But, after some promising firefighting - Ranieri won four and lost only one of his first seven matches in charge - he has been unable to prevent old neuroses and weaknesses returning.
This was not exactly what Ranieri bargained for at Roma. His appointment is still being hailed from his employer as a populist choice.
"He is a Roman and a romanista," Sensi reminded her antagonists last week. So he is, but from a long time ago in a career that then took him across Italy, Spain and England. "It's been more than 25 years since I last lived and worked in Rome," Ranieri said.
So it is only the older Roma loyalists who recall Ranieri as the hard-working defender who wore Roma's jersey, briefly, in Serie A in the mid 1970s. As a player, he had more success at Catanzaro, Catania and Palermo. As a coach, he made his name at Cagliari, Napoli and Fiorentina, then in Spain's Primera Liga and with Chelsea in England.
As a firefighter, he remade his reputation by saving Parma from what looked certain relegation in 2007. And the firefighter image hardly left him, even at Juventus, where in two seasons he restored that club as a Serie A force until leaving in April.
"They had just come out of Serie B, and the aim was to get Juventus back up," he said of that episode, which ended with him being fired. "We finished third in Serie A, and then second. Nobody asked me to win the league in that short time at Juve and, yes, I'd have been happier to have finished the season there. But this is how things sometimes happen. A little door closes, and a big one opens."
But behind Roma's door, a bad fire was burning. "They had had mainly the same team for the last four years, the same manager for that time, and I am working with a squad I inherited," said Ranieri. "It's important to look forward and the team are behind me, following me 100 per cent."
That included the totemic, hugely influential Totti, he added. "Totti is different, the whole world knows that. He's our magic box, unique, and it's vital for us to have him, because when he's on the field you always have the possibility of something out of nothing." Alas, for Roma's crisis, they have no Totti for at least the next three weeks.
ihawkey@thenational.ae
Roma v Bologna, KO 6pm, Aljazeera Sport + 7
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How Voiss turns words to speech
The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen
The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser
This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen
A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB
The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free
Subsequent computer versions will include improvements such as wireless keyboards
Arabic voice in affordable talking computer to be added next year to English, Portuguese, and Spanish synthesiser
Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages
At least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness
More than 90 per cent live in developing countries
The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
