Gasperini’s Roma: A New Power in the Capital
Roma have started this season with a different posture. Not just sharper. Not just fitter. Different.
On the touchline, Gian Piero Gasperini cuts a familiar figure – arms carving the air, voice ripping across the pitch, the same relentless intensity that defined his work elsewhere in Serie A. But in Rome, that intensity already feels like something more: authority.
At Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi on May 24, 2026, in the match against Hellas Verona, the image was telling. Gasperini, the new head coach of AS Roma, stood in command, orchestrating every movement. Early days in the job, yet his fingerprints are all over this team.
A Coach With Unusual Clout
Inside Trigoria, the sense is clear: Gasperini is not just coaching Roma, he is reshaping it.
His influence appears to stretch deeper than many of his predecessors, even a figure as commanding as José Mourinho. Team structure, tactical direction, squad profiles – Gasperini seems to sit near the centre of it all. The hierarchy has given him room, and he has wasted no time filling that space.
That matters in Rome, a club where power has often been fragmented, where coaches have clashed with directors, where projects have been built and dismantled in the space of a few seasons. Gasperini’s early impact hints at something more stable, more coherent. A clear idea, driven from the dugout.
If this start is anything to go by, Roma are no longer simply reacting to the league around them. They are trying to impose themselves on it.
Malen, Goals and a Record in the Distance
Into this new framework steps Donyell Malen.
The Dutch forward arrives with pace, movement and a nose for goal – raw materials Gasperini has a history of refining. Under this coach, strikers do not just finish attacks; they become the sharp edge of a carefully engineered system.
That is why one question has already surfaced around the club: can Gasperini turn Malen into a genuine challenger for Gonzalo Higuaín’s extraordinary 36-goal Serie A record?
It is a bold target. The season is still in its early stages, the table barely settled, the patterns of form not yet fixed. Records of that magnitude are rarely even whispered in public before winter. Yet the combination of Gasperini’s attacking structure and Malen’s profile makes the conversation impossible to ignore.
The idea is simple. Gasperini’s sides create volume: chances, overloads, repeated waves of pressure. If Malen locks into that rhythm, if he stays fit, if Roma maintain their aggressive start, the numbers could climb quickly.
Title Talk and the Weight of Expectation
All of this feeds into a bigger question: what exactly can Roma be this season?
With the team responding to Gasperini’s demands and the attack already showing signs of fluency, the notion of a genuine title challenge no longer feels fanciful around the club. The coach appears to hold more power than those who came before him, and with that comes responsibility: to turn a promising opening into something more substantial.
Roma’s ambitions, once framed cautiously around top-four battles and cup runs, are edging upward. A side with a defined identity, a coach with clear authority, and a striker being primed for a potentially record-breaking campaign – that is the outline of a contender, not a bystander.
The campaign is still young. The fixtures will tighten, injuries will bite, form will fluctuate. Yet the early signs under Gasperini hint at a Roma side ready to push against its own limits.
If Malen catches fire and the coach’s grip on the squad holds firm, the capital may soon find itself living with a new reality: a Roma team not just dreaming of staying in the race, but daring to set its own pace.
