You don’t get any trophies by default for winning the most points across a calendar year, but it’s an achievement to take some pride in as a sign of strong progress.
Roma have just marked the sixth time they gained more points than all their rivals in Serie A across the whole 12 months of a calendar year.
Here, in chronological order, are all the times it has happened.
1983
Roma had plenty to celebrate in the summer of 1983 after being crowned the champions of Italy for the second time. (The first time had been in the 1941-42 season, but Roma didn’t actually gain the most points across either 1941 or 1942 as individual calendar years).
With 16 wins, 11 draws and 4 losses from their 31 games in 1983, Nils Liedohlm’s Roma gained the most points across the year, outranking Juventus by a single point.
However, Juventus went on to claim the title for themselves by the end of the 1983-84 season.
1986
Roma’s coach throughout 1986 was Sven-Göran Eriksson, although the 1986-87 season would be his last with the club.
After finishing as runners up in 1985-86 – winning their first six league games of the calendar year in the process and not tasting defeat in the New Year until March – Roma’s form became more mixed in 1986-87.
Nevertheless, for 1986 as a calendar year, they claimed 17 wins, 4 draws and 7 defeats, at least three more wins than any other side. Napoli were the nearest to catching their annual points tally, but fell two short.
2001
2001 was the most recent year in which Roma got to lift the Serie A trophy, having won the title for the 2000-01 season under the guidance of Fabio Capello.
While on the home straight towards their third league title, Roma enjoyed a seven-match winning streak between January and March. They also went unbeaten for the last nine games of the season, winning the title on the final day by beating Parma 3-1.
As for the title defence, Roma only lost one of their games during the remainder of 2001, which meant that for the calendar year, they outranked Juventus by one point.
Those roles were sadly reversed when it came to the final standings for the 2001-02 season.
2006
2006 was an unforgettable year for Italian football, not only for the Azzurri winning the World Cup but also for the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal that had a profound effect on Serie A.
Roma began 2006 with Luciano Spalletti midway through his first season in charge of the club. Impressively, they won their first 10 league games of the calendar year, going on to finish 5th (a position that was later upgraded to 2nd after punishments were handed out to offending clubs such as Juventus, who were stripped of their title and relegated to Serie B).
Throughout the 2006-07 season, Roma never slipped out of the top four. By the end of the calendar year of 2006, Roma had 26 wins, 8 draws and 5 defeats to their name – the same record as Inter (the re-assigned champions of 2005-06 who claimed the title again in 2006-07) but with a goal difference that was better by seven.
2010
Having last tasted defeat in October 2009, Claudio Ranieri’s Roma didn’t do so again in Serie A until late April 2010. It was a crushing loss, though, as Sampdoria’s victory deflated Roma’s title charge right as the finishing line was in sight.
Until then, Roma had been sweeping aside the likes of Juventus and even eventual treble-winners Inter, so it was gutting to say the least. The 24-game unbeaten run – 17 games of which fell in 2010 – in Serie A matched the club record.
After settling for second place, Roma struggled to find their stride as consistently in 2010-11.
But 2010 was the year in which they outranked all other Serie A teams by the biggest margin they had ever managed, obtaining six more than nearest challengers AC Milan thanks to their 24 wins, 9 draws and just 5 losses.
2025
Who would have thought, at the end of 2024 – when the club had already turned to their third coach of the new season, and fourth of that calendar year – that Roma would become the form team of Serie A and outpoint everyone else in 2025?
Inspired by a derby win to kick the New Year off, Roma went on an incredible resurgence under Ranieri, climbing from 10th in the table at the turn of the year to 5th by the end of the season. In fact, they only suffered defeat once in the league over the second half of the season.
That was at the hands of Gian Piero Gasperini with Atalanta, the man who would succeed Ranieri as Roma’s head coach that summer.
By November, Gasperini got Roma into top spot of the Serie A table; even if it was only for one matchday, it was territory they hadn’t been in at that stage of a season since 2013.
With a great deal of intrigue as to whether Roma could sustain a title challenge in 2026 or simply get back into the sorely-missed Champions League, they finished 2025 with a record of 26 wins, 4 draws and 7 losses.
The 82 points accumulated were five more than Inter, the nearest challengers across the calendar year.
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