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FOOTBALL, THE ROMAN TEAMS TOGETHER AT THE TOP
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It may also bring bad luck. But 17, the number all Roman football fans had been waiting for a long time, was finally drawn.
This does not mean some weeks or months, but years. In fact, it was 5 November 1972 when for the last time the two Capitoline teams fought side by side for the championship at the top of the league. The long wait, the wish to savour again such a strong emotion by Romans were further encouraged the following Sunday, when the Roma team won in Udine while a still convalescent Lazio, after having been defeated just the week before in the derby, was forced to draw with Juventus at home. Indeed, Juventus is also fighting for the shield, having the same points as the two Roman teams, but this is not a surprise, given the glorious history of the Turin team. On the contrary, what is really surprising is the fact that after many seasons with ups and downs, Roma and Lazio are once again together at the top.
In the Seventies, Lazio with Maestrelli and Chinaglia had managed to win a championship nearly from nothing.
More constant was Roma with Falcao, which in the mid Eighties won the championship and was very close to win a Champion's Cup. But neither of the two teams had never the pleasure to flash past the detested cousins on the finishing line. In fact, when the first were enjoying great favour, usually the rivalry was dull due to the mediocrity of the second. And when Liedholm brought into the capital the second shield in the history of Roma, Lazio was still groping in the second division.
In short, there was never a real dualism thanks to which the capital could become fond of a really spectacular football. Obviously, Roma and Lazio have always tried to emerge in the championship, but at the end of the season the winner was always a non-Roman team. Having to compete mainly with Milan and Juventus, the Roman teams found it difficult to play well and make good results, and they even got to the point of stealing each other a trainer, Zeman, who adopted unconventional and sometimes effective schemes that however never took the two teams to victory.
All that despite the large investments made by Cragnotti and Sensi, two presidents who are poles apart as far as management methods are concerned, but who are undoubtedly sincere in their desire to create two great clubs.
In the last season, after that Lazio almost won the championship and gained the Cup Winners' Cup, Roma immediately took countermeasures, managing to secure the Italian most successful trainer of the last ten years, i.e. Fabio Capello.
If Lazio had finally managed to reach the top of the Italian and European football, Roma had no choice left than that of betting on the Friulian trainer, a man who had gained a number of trophies both as a player and a coach in Milan and Turin. It was an important bet but with a logical and basic ground, that is, the fact that Capello has a perfect knowledge of the background and the expectations of Roma, having played with this team for a couple of seasons. Therefore, at the moment the whole city of Rome can look at the top of the league and smile, looking forward to a new sensation. Then no more teasing and sneers for the misfortunes of others, but now two teams that can really compete and win. Curiously, it seems that the Italian football takes its supporters to live through the emotions it creates more intensely as distances increase in a longitudinal way. If in Reggio Calabria the exploits of the local team in the first division every day contribute to stirring up a city, nearly the same happens in the capital. Nearly every day newspapers, TV and local radio stations set up transmissions and debates on the two clubs. There is a lot of passion for football, and fuelling it with the prestigious victories by both teams is undoubtedly the best way to satisfy this hunger. Having lost its empire, Rome has never given up the desire to be once again "Caput Mundi", at least in the most ancient game of the world.
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Paolo Ghisoni
 
 
 

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