When Roma fans win the game

It’s a totally modern tendency, even totally contemporary, to believe that football is reduced to mere facts on the pitch. If once the twelfth man it was the audience Today that role belongs to the coach, who in fact often comes before the team in the new collective imagination of football. A physiological process in an increasingly technologically advanced, scientific, accurate and programmed football in which the players, like in a scale, have lost character (and control) and which has always been taken over by the coach on the bench: demiurge, ideologue and leader of his Men.

However, to deny the importance of a coach in the growth and validation of a team today is bound to sound more anachronistic than twenty years ago. It is normal for this to be the case as a Technician has so many choices to engrave depending on the contexts and his education – with all due respect to those all coaches at Football Manager, young people want laptop player a la Nagelsmann obsessed with control and tactics. On the other hand, Mourinho is also in Rome, and that’s where we come to ourselves, become the brain and soul of a club.

We’ll be talking about José and his work in Rome in a dedicated post soon, maybe later in the season, but that’s certainly no coincidence the team has grown in personality, certainties, malice; that he began to score points in direct matches and after almost 15 years (Europeans after more than 60 years) brought back a trophy to Rome. But in this growth process that football nerds just can’t see, so focused on the finger (the ‘game’, certainly not spectacular, expressed on the pitch) rather than the moon (a club’s 360 degree growth), the Giallorossi coach had an essential support in the Roman fans.

Because as a real footballer, and by that we mean one who is well aware that “those who only know football don’t know anything about football”, Mourinho was aware How much the public than a place like Rome could be a crucial factor.

It’s not so much about sold-out series, the more than 60,000 that have permanently populated the Stadio Olimpico for months in every single yellow-red game; as Mourinho himself pointed out, it is sold out and sold out. Last night’s sell-out, just to be clear, wasn’t the one registered with Verona or even Juventus – in which the stadium was packed but it wasn’t as hot as yesterday. Yesterday was (almost) sold out like last year with the Bodo, in which a fiery pool drove his gladiators to comeback, and it was like in the final phase of the Conference League: an OlympianThat means, resulting in Roma winning a trophy.

Many may turn up their noses, but we invite them to put aside their prejudices, get off the sofa or look away from their device; we invite you to come to any stadium, seething, electrifying and abysmal, and to understand how much a game can change. A dynamic made up of atmospheres, emotions, Refrains depending on the moment that the curva has to master skillfully. Last year, for example, Roma won the conference with a choir that lasted from the eightieth minute to the final whistle and managed to include not only the sud and the distinti (like basically all other choirs) but the rest of the stadium as well.

A Choir for the last minutes of suffering, to exorcise them and urge the players, now almost exhausted, for that extra shot, that extra tackle, that extra effort; to make him understand how many people have relied on them.

When your colors blow / I get chills / I never tire of you / Come on, great rom-alé.

This year this choir was moved to the attic and replaced by another, perhaps more beautiful and created by the Fedayeen, capable of the same involve the whole stadium: also the Monte Mario grandstand, the most exclusive sector of cheering, always seated comfortably as if he were in the theater that last night sang until they screamed. Distinguished sixties, with families and well dressed, who started jumping and waving scarves like children.

Giallorossa is one of a kind / this shirt is magic to me / eh ehhh / you know wherever you play on Sunday I’ll follow you / oh ohhh.

Refrain sung softly once, with flags still and lowered, with everyone still down and crouching, and then sung again at the top of their lungs, waving the same flags and scarves, Jump and create an authentic (It’s funny) chaos Collective.

A chorus that, to get back to the point, charges the players and makes them discover unexpected energies hidden deep within. Imagine 60,000 people singing madly to you: When you’re not made of chips and circuits, you can feel something rising inside you. Like yesterday when the chorus kicked in in the 80th minute giving a jolt to the team, revitalized by the Olimpico’s push and after 5-10 minutes they won that corner, hitting beautifully (with Dybala) and bagging with the Goring from Kumbulla to final 2-0. This goal was (also) scored by the twelfth man yesterdayand it is absolutely not about rhetoric, but about reality that is as concrete as possible.

Add to that the great character and mental test of the team and Mourinho’s perfect management. A game and a 100% Mourinhana win: mean, cynical, with personality. And meticulously prepared, as on the occasion of a first goal-tested Paro Paro in training (like back then confessed by the same coach) and to secure at half-time a Roma side that began to suffer from qualitative possession between the Basque lines (Illaramendi, Merino, Kubo and above all David Silva), to which the Giallorossi then closed spaces and passes to the lines in the second half.

All of that is there, and certainly there are better people than us who can highlight it with tactical boards, heatmaps and whatnot. But we’re here to repeat it how many fans can officiate a game. Mourinho, who was a great psychologist even before he became a great coach, knows this very well and speaks to the public incessantly, knowing that this cannot be limited to just the Curva. After Salzburg, the Portuguese coach unsurprisingly reproached the backers, i.e. the stands, Monte Mario and Co., in the usual excuse of bowing jubilation.sleep‘ instead of cheering.

What was the needmany have wondered this clarification after a decisive victory? Why this criticism against a sector that has never participated in stadium celebrations?

Because, aware of his potential, Mourinho wants “the whole stadium” to cheer: like Bodo, like in the final phase of the conference, like last night. Because he knows very well that there and really It is played 12 against 11. «When this stadium wants to play, it’s not just beautiful, because you can be beautiful and do nothing. When this stadium plays with us, it really helps us». His words from last night, replayed by Rome’s official channels: They know it too.