The odds have been stacked against Niccolò Pisilli during his breakthrough season with Roma. By the time of his 17th appearance for the first team, he was already being fielded by the fourth coach of his burgeoning career.
While it’s good for young players to pick up ideas from various minds, that can’t have helped Pisilli’s pathway into senior football. A lack of consistency on the bench ought to have disrupted any player’s progress, let alone a youngster like him.
And yet Pisilli has won over all four of the coaches he has briefly had at Roma. At the start of this topsy-turvy season, he had three senior appearances under his belt. Now, that figure has increased tenfold.
It’s not been a smooth ride, naturally. In the first few weeks of the season, after getting a nod of trust from Daniele De Rossi in the first big game of the season against Juventus – early enough for it to feel like that was a game against a direct rival – Pisilli was one of Roma’s standout players. More recently, the midfielder has sometimes frustrated with his efficiency (or lack thereof) in the final third. But he remedied that by getting a goal against Porto in the second leg of Roma’s Europa League knockout play-off tie and, three days later, has now earned a new contract until 2029 with his boyhood club.
Pisilli was 18 when José Mourinho gave him his first-team debut. He was 19 when Mourinho was sacked and still the same age when De Rossi was too. The 20-year-old has since been part of the brief Ivan Jurić spell and the more stable third reign of Claudio Ranieri.
It’s been a rapid-ageing process of character building. But Pisilli has come through the other side and given himself hope of a long-term future under at least a fifth coach of his career next season and beyond.
Whoever that may be, Pisilli will enter the new project safe in the knowledge that his four so far have all had positive things to say about him.
When he scored on his Europa League debut in December 2023, Mourinho said: “I gave lots of debuts in many other clubs, but at Roma many of them are kids who grew up here, who went to the stadium with their fathers, grandfathers, and when they get a chance to play for the senior squad, it is so emotional. It is his first goal in the Stadio Olimpico, in the Europa League, in the net below where he used to sit in the stands. Such joy. I had to run off, or I would burst into tears too!”
A moment Niccolò Pisilli will never forget! 🌟#ASRoma | #UEL
— AS Roma English (@ASRomaEN) December 16, 2023
pic.twitter.com/zkb4e8mk8z
It was then De Rossi who permanently promoted Pisilli into the first team and prevented him from leaving on loan for the 2024-25 season.
After giving him a start against Juventus in September, De Rossi said: “I’m happy for Pisilli. It’s a sign for everyone. There’s room for all those who are strong in training, I treat those like that a little better than the others. Many of the choices I made in the transfer market were made with him in mind, maybe I don’t say it often but I’m convinced that we have a very strong player. Roma and I first and foremost have to let these talents who are already behaving like champions blossom.”
But De Rossi didn’t have much time to continue that process. And his successor Jurić had only a short window of opportunity to work with Pisilli, only managing Roma for 12 games – but even in that short timeframe the Croatian was struck as well.
Jurić stated: “You fall in love easily. He’s young, he must grow, and he comes from an intellectual family. He’s also a little intellectual. He is calm and serene. He thinks and has a talent that I had never seen in young players like him. He has a clear perception of things from the first touch. If he continues like this, working hard without being overconfident, he’ll have a great career.”
One highlight from that fleeting spell was Pisilli’s lung-busting recovery run against Monza, covering half the pitch to deny a dangerous counter-attack. Symbolic of his effort, it deserved to be as memorable a moment as any of his goal contributions so far.
Ma il recupero di Niccolò Pisilli? 🫁🥵 pic.twitter.com/5uoA823gLc
— Lega Serie A (@SerieA) October 17, 2024
And now, at last, Pisilli has a coach who has given him more appearances than the previous three put together. Ranieri may not always start the academy graduate, but he does have a place for him in his plans.
Ranieri said in December, after Pisilli scored his first Serie A goal against Lecce and got an assist as a game-changing substitute: “He’s tough, works hard, can shoot, assist, he is young and has a bright future ahead of him.”
The following month, Pisilli sat alongside Ranieri at a pre-match press conference for Roma’s Europa League game against AZ, during which the 73-year-old said of his midfield prospect: “It struck me that he is a force of nature, who never gives up.”
Pisilli will have to continue with the same mentality to achieve consistency over the next four years of his new contract. For a club that have mismanaged so many academy talents in recent years – from constant dream return target Davide Frattesi to Edoardo Bove, the latter being especially pertinent given he was offloaded in the summer ahead of Pisilli’s emergence and went on to flourish at Fiorentina until his health scare, in Pisilli’s position within the past decade alone – there could be an added element of pressure on the one who has remained at the club to show he’s worth it.
There will be more ups and downs, but Pisilli is mature enough to handle it and has at least earned the right to prove himself within Roma’s future.
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