Having blown out the candles on Francesco Totti's 38th birthday cake with a fifth successive Serie A victory last weekend, and then seen their captain become the Uefa Champions League's oldest scorer with his equalising goal at Manchester City, Roma's week got even better on Wednesday.
Thanks to Atletico Madrid's win over Juventus, the Romans are now Italy's only invincibles, the only unbeaten team who are competing in Europe.
They have made quite a start to the season, although that is becoming a trademark. Last season, Roma won their opening 10 fixtures, and conceded just one goal in that period. Echoes can be heard in their current sequence – five league matches, 15 points, just the one goal conceded, and a promising position in their Champions League group after taking a more-than-merited point away from the home of City, the Premier League champions.
And, as Totti phrased it in an interview with La Repubblica on Friday, “we didn’t actually win anything, did we, last time?” The principal reason the Roma juggernaut of 12 months ago finished without reward? Juventus.
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Juve inflicted the first defeat of Roma’s turbo-powered 2013/14, fully 18 fixtures into that campaign. They beat them again, in the capital, at the end of the season, by which time the so-called Old Lady had confirmed a third successive scudetto, with Roma runners-up. Roma may have been the most attractive Italian side of the past 18 months for the neutral watcher; their displays back in the Champions League after a five-year absence have shown off their panache to a broader audience. But Juve were evidently the more effective.
Their meeting Sunday may well be shaped by contrasting fortunes in Europe in midweek. A pre-season assumption was that Roma would suffer more than Juve for their European exertions. In fact, Juve, hurt by the loss against Atletico, look the squad the more affected by fatigue, with Arturo Vidal, among others, apparently in need of a rest.
Vidal, whose freshness and fitness needs to be carefully managed by Juve coach Max Allegri, may give way to Andrea Pirlo, who is close to match-fitness after a period of injury, though Allegri will be loath to do without Vidal’s bite in midfield.
On the pitch, an intense series of jousts should be anticipated, not least between the two young men with an interesting line in colourful haircuts, Juve’s Paul Pogba, who favours highlighted “Mohicans”, and Roma’s Radja Nainggolan, who also likes a blond trim along the ridge of dark hair he wears across an otherwise shaved head.
Nainggolan’s status as one of the most influential players in Italy grows almost by the week. His astute pass to set up Totti’s goals against City was his fourth assist of the season.
He also scored Roma’s opening league goal of the campaign, against Fiorentina, and has hardly stopped running since. The striking characteristics of Nainggolan – apart from the coiffure – are his energy and ubiquity. Against City on Tuesday, he was tracked as having covered almost 11 kilometres in his 90 minutes.
Romanisti nickname him “Ninja”, partly because of his south-east Asian background. His estranged father is from Indonesia, where Nainggolan has a large following of fans, and partly because of his warrior aura.
He is a player Antonio Conte, the coach who guided Juventus to their scudetti of 2012, 2013, and 2014, admires and one who Juventus last year pressed to recruit. When he left Cagliari, last January, however, it was Roma who made Nainggolan the most tempting offer.
He concedes to feeling especially driven this season, having been left out of Belgium’s World Cup squad in the summer. The omission angered him, and played into Nainggolan’s suspicion that because he came to Italy as a young teenager, and never played senior football in his native country, he is not as respected in Belgium as in Serie A, where he has developed almost a cult status.
Quite rightly, he has been called up by Belgium for next weeks’ internationals. But before then, he has a gladiatorial showdown to impose himself on. If Nainggolan, and the likes of Miralem Pjanic and Seydou Keita can better the efforts of Pogba and his partners, Roma will be a good way to reversing the dominance Juve have held over them in recent times.
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