Roma have grown used to expecting the goal of the ex over the years, but it can add insult to injury when that former player is one that came through the club’s own youth system.
Roma have historically had a strong academy, producing long-serving players and future captains like Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi, but also graduates who have gone on to have more success away from the club.
Here, Giallorossi Yorkshire looks back at the times when former Roma academy players scored against the club.
One of the most famous examples would be former captain Agostino Di Bartolomei scoring for Milan against Roma in 1984, but this article will focus on all the examples that happened in the 21st Century, in chronological order.
Simone Pepe
Pepe never made his senior debut for Roma and was sold to Palermo in 2003 after loan spells with Lecco and Teramo. The Sicilian side were in Serie B at the time, but were drawn against Roma in the quarter-finals of the 2003-04 Coppa Italia. Pepe played in both legs and opened the scoring half an hour into the second, but Roma won 3-1 on aggreggate.
After becoming a full Italy international and Scudetto winner, Pepe went on to score a second goal against Roma in January 2016 in a 3-3 draw against Chievo Verona.
Cesare Bovo
Roma let defender Bovo go on a co-ownership deal to Lecce in 2002 after a solitary first-team appearance for the club. Two years later, Roma took over his rights again, before loaning him to Parma – for whom he scored against Luigi Delneri’s side in a 5-1 defeat.
Daniele Conti
Bruno Conti was one of Roma’s best ever players, but his son made his name away from the capital. In 1999, Daniele’s journey with Roma ended after six appearances and his defining chapter with Cagliari, where he would become a club legend, began.
Ironically, Conti became a common nemesis for Roma, scoring five times against them – first in February 2006 and latterly in September 2011. Against no other club did he ever score that many times.
Gaetano D’Agostino
Born in Palermo, D’Agostino was snapped up by Roma in 1998 at the age of 16. The midfielder showed some signs of progression but was sacrificed to Bari in 2001 to help bring Antonio Cassano to the capital. A couple of years later, D’Agostino got a second chance at Roma, lasting until January 2005.
Further down the line in his career, he scored a consolation goal for Fiorentina in a November 2010 match that ended 3-2 to Roma.
Andrea Bertolacci
Bertolacci’s first steps away from his boyhood club Roma took him to Lecce as part of a loan spell between 2010 and 2012. The midfielder was an unused sub in both meetings between the two clubs in the first season of that spell, but on his first ever outing against Roma in the second, he was Lecce’s scorer.
Nevertheless, Roma won that game 2-1. Bertolacci ultimately moved on to Genoa in a co-ownership deal and was flipped for profit by moving to Milan in 2015, without ever making his Roma debut.
Gianluca Caprari
Roma have ended up being one of Caprari’s most common opponents, but he began his senior career with his hometown club, graduating to the first team in 2011.
The forward then moved to Pescara in a loan move that became a co-ownership for the 2012-13 season. And in the second game between Roma and Pescara that season, Caprari headed in the opener in what turned out to be a 1-1 draw.
He has since scored against Roma for Benevento and Hellas Verona as well.
Matteo Politano
One of the more successful players to never make an appearance at Roma but go on to enjoy a lengthy Serie A career, Politano came back to haunt his hometown club after working his way up to the top flight with a move to Sassuolo in 2015.
The winger’s first Serie A goal was precisely against Roma; after assisting a goal for future Giallorossi flop Gregoire Defrel for the opener, Politano made it 2-1 before the stroke of half time, although Roma’s own more-than-capable right-winger of the time (a certain Mohamed Salah) equalised after the break.
Despite coming close to a return to his boyhood club in January 2020, Politano also scored against Roma for Napoli on an emotional weekend after the death of Diego Maradona in November 2020.
Marco D’Alessandro
Following five loan spells away from Roma, D’Alessandro was sold to Atalanta in 2014. It was in Bergamo that the winger would establish himself as a Serie A regular for the next few years.
D’Alessandro had played against Roma before while on loan at Bari, but after remaining on the bench for the first three times Atalanta played against his hometown club, he scored against Luciano Spalletti’s side the first time he was called upon in April 2016.
It was a more successful Roma youth product to steal the show, though, as a 39-year-old Totti fired in a late equaliser in a 3-3 draw.
Federico Viviani
A midfielder who captained Roma’s Primavera to the Coppa Italia in 2012, Viviani was later sold to Hellas Verona in 2015. However, the club where he would really find his feet was SPAL, who signed him in 2017.
In the December of his debut season there, Viviani cut the deficit in a game against Eusebio Di Francesco’s Roma with a half-volley from a rebound after Alisson Becker had tipped his penalty onto the crossbar, but his goal to make it 3-1 was the last in the game.
Daniele Verde
Verde was on the cusp of a breakthrough at Roma during the 2014-15 season, but never quite nailed down a long-term role. Six years later, though, they became almost sick of the sight of him.
In fact, Verde scored against Roma in three separate matches for Spezia between January and May 2021, one of which was the infamous Coppa Italia defeat in which Paulo Fonseca’s side lost both on the pitch and by default due to subsequently being thrown out for making six subs.
Matteo Cancellieri
Sacrificed by Roma to Hellas Verona in 2020 as part of the operation to bring in Marash Kumbulla, Cancellieri ultimately went on to return to the capital by joining Lazio in 2022.
The winger spent the 2023-24 season on loan at Empoli and on the final day of the season scored and assisted against Roma to inflict a 2-1 defeat upon his former side.
Edoardo Bove
Embed from Getty ImagesRoman through and through, Bove burst to prominence under the guidance of Jose Mourinho, but successor De Rossi didn’t have as big a place in his plans for the midfielder. Despite Bove being assigned the number eight jersey just before the 2024-25 season began, Roma sent him on loan to Fiorentina with a view to the move becoming permanent.
It was a move that split opinion in the fanbase at the time, but there could only be regrets as Bove produced a man-of-the-match performance for Fiorentina in his first outing against Roma in October, winning a penalty for La Viola’s second goal, assisting their third and scoring their fourth.
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