Roma’s win over Barnsley will soon be completely forgotten about by the vast majority of fans, but not through a Giallorossi Yorkshire lens.
Not since 2006 had Roma played against a team from Yorkshire. On that occasion, it was Middlesbrough in the UEFA Cup. In the second leg in Rome, Daniele De Rossi captained the Giallorossi for the first time. The next time Roma would face a team from Yorkshire, he’d be the manager.
You’d have to go as far back as 1963 to find the only other time before the Barnsley game that Roma arranged a friendly match against a Yorkshire team by choice, when they welcomed Leeds United to the Italian capital.
So, while the Barnsley match was behind closed doors – and not even held in Yorkshire, but at St. George’s Park instead – it represented a rare colliding of familiar worlds for Roma fans from this part of England.
What added to the rarity of the occasion was that Barnsley’s lineup was mainly made up of youth players, whereas Roma used most of their first-team players – with the exception of their main goalkeeper (Mile Svilar), defensive midfielder (Leandro Paredes) and striker (Artem Dovbyk) – at some point within the separate lineups De Rossi fielded for either half.
But a drubbing this was not to be. Despite Roma taking the lead inside two minutes via an Enzo Le Fee rebounded effort – Barnsley’s only touch up to that point being the keeper’s stop from his first shot – they were unable to double their lead before the break. Some players did reasonably well, such as Ebrima Darboe in possession or birthday-boy Buba Sangare at 17 (he wasn’t even born at the time of the Middlesbrough match mentioned earlier), but those were ones with lower expectations to measure against. Perhaps understandably, the conviction from some of the others wasn’t at its maximum.
The second half was better for Roma. There was more intensity, better movement on and off the ball and an exploitation of the channels to a better degree than was seen last season. It’s hard to read too much into a game like this at the best of times, even without the extra context of how youthful the lineup of the English third-tier opponents was, but it offered a glimpse of how Roma might change their style next season now De Rossi has had some time to implement his methods properly.
It was especially interesting to see new signing Matias Soule in this context. He was part of the second-half lineup that scored three goals and he played an increasing role in each. He made the pre-assist for the first, passing time Bryan Cristante on the edge of the box whose chip into the area was headed in by Niccolo Pisilli. He made the assist for the second, passing to Paulo Dybala who lobbed the keeper off his line. And he scored the last goal himself in similar fashion to his fellow Argentine.
On that note, what a moment it must have been for the young Barnsley players to say they were playing against a reigning World Cup winner in Dybala. And in fairness to them, only losing 4-0 was a respectable effort given the range of internationals they had to face (even if not all at the same time). There were honest challenges by both sets of players, making it a good workout for both groups.
The game may have been insignificant to most – even some Barnsley fans who’d be more concerned about their League One opener with their first-team players on Friday – and Roma will learn more about themselves in their next friendly against Premier League outfit Everton. But let’s hope it’s not another 18 years before Roma play one of our local teams again. And let’s do it in Yorkshire and in front of fans next time, OK?
Leave a Reply