The Roma job is the biggest undertaking of Ivan Juric’s coaching career so far, not just in terms of the task at hand but also in terms of the big personas and egos he is now going to have to manage.
Juric was until this point most notable for coaching the likes of Hellas Verona and Torino, teams with mid-table aspirations at best, but he now has the reins of a Roma project with Champions League qualification as the final goal – even if it feels like a distant possibility at the moment.
While Juric is already getting to grips with his new squad, only time will tell how he deploys the players on the pitch.
Out of curiosity, he has crossed paths before with a handful of players who had either played for Roma before or would do so in the future.
Here is a summary of each one.
Andrea Belotti
Juric was in charge of Torino for Belotti’s final season there before his contract expired. The striker scored eight goals from 23 games in 2021-22 before joining Roma on a free and failing to score at all in Serie A during his debut season.
Fabio Borini
Borini played under Juric for Hellas Verona in 2020, almost a decade after his short spell with Roma.
Nicolas Burdisso
Roma were the midpoint of Nicolas Burdisso’s career, after which he joined Genoa. Juric took the helm for the last of the defender’s three seasons there, giving him 33 appearances.
Mert Cetin
In 2020, Roma arranged a part-exchange deal which included the sale of Mert Cetin to Juric’s Verona after a solitary season. The Turkish defender was used sparingly at both clubs.
Nikola Kalinic
Nikola Kalinic fell somewhere between underwhelming and respectable during his stint as Roma’s backup striker in the 2019-20 season. After they declined making his move permanent, Kalinic was picked up by Juric’s Verona, scoring twice from 19 games under his Croatian compatriot.
Marash Kumbulla
Kumbulla was the more expensive part of the aforementioned operation involving Cetin. Juric put his faith in the Albania international in Serie A during the 2019-20 season, converting him into one of Italian football’s most coveted prospects. Since his move to Roma, though, Kumbulla has struggled to fulfil his potential. He is currently out on loan at Espanyol, thus delaying any potential reunion with Juric, who is initially only under contract until the end of the season.
Luca Mazzitelli
A product of Roma’s academy, Luca Mazzitelli only ever made one appearance for the club’s first team. He later ended up at Sassuolo, who loaned him to Genoa for the 2018-19 season, which Juric took charge in partway through.
Federico Ricci
Another academy graduate of Roma’s system, Federico Ricci also had a loan spell under Juric at Genoa from Sassuolo, but only made four appearances – the same as his entire Roma tally – in their time together.
Aleandro Rosi
Roma youth product Aleandro Rosi worked under Juric at Genoa during a permanent spell, with the right-back making 10 appearances.
Antonio Sanabria
Juric’s third most-used player at Torino was Antonio Sanabria, a striker who was denied a breakthrough at Roma after arriving in 2014. The former Barcelona prospect scored 23 goals from 102 games under Juric’s guidance.
Nicolas Spolli
One third of the arriving players in Roma’s infamously disastrous January 2015 transfer window, Nicolas Spolli only played once for the club. He later played twice under Juric at Genoa.
Valerio Verre
Never used in Serie A by Roma but given a European debut, academy graduate Valerio Verre has since carved out a respectable journeyman-style career in Italy’s top two tiers. He spent the 2019-20 season in Serie A, on loan at Juric’s Verona from Sampdoria and making 33 appearances, scoring three times.
Ervin Zukanovic
Roma signed Ervin Zukanovic from Sampdoria in 2016, but quickly looked to ship him off. The defender’s second loan spell away from Roma was at Genoa in the 2017-18 season, introducing him to Juric, and that transfer became permanent to allow the pair to work together again in 2018-19.
Honourable mentions: Andrea Bertolacci, Matteo Cancellieri and Nemanja Radonjic are all players who came through Roma’s academy without playing for the first team, before being led by Juric at some stage of their subsequent senior careers elsewhere.
Leave a Reply