Gasperini’s Roma: A Rising Power in Serie A

Roma have started this season with a different stride. Not just sharper, not just fitter. Different.

At the heart of it stands Gian Piero Gasperini, a coach who has wasted no time turning the Giallorossi into a side that looks, plays and behaves in his image.

From the touchline at the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi in Verona on May 24, 2026, his gestures told the story. Constant instruction, constant demands. Players pushed higher, lines compressed, movements rehearsed yet aggressive. This is no gentle transition. This is a takeover.

A Coach With Unusual Authority

Inside Trigoria, Gasperini’s influence is already being spoken about in heavyweight terms. The authority he appears to wield rivals, and arguably exceeds, that of any recent Roma coach, including José Mourinho.

That is no small statement in a club that has grown used to big personalities in the dugout. Mourinho brought aura, conflict, and two European finals. Gasperini brings something else: a clear, uncompromising footballing blueprint and the power to enforce it at every level.

The hierarchy seems to trust him not only with the team sheet, but with the direction of the project. Tactically, structurally, even in the market, his fingerprints are visible. The squad has been shaped to fit his demands, not the other way round.

For Roma, that shift matters. It hints at a club finally aligning around one idea, one style, one voice. If that unity holds, their ceiling this season rises sharply.

Malen at the Sharp End

Front and centre of this new Roma stands Donyell Malen. The Dutch striker has become the most intriguing piece on Gasperini’s board.

Malen has always had pace, movement and an eye for goal. Under Gasperini, he now has a framework built to unleash those traits relentlessly. The coach’s attacking patterns – vertical passes, quick combinations, runners flooding the final third – are designed to feed a forward who thrives on space and service.

The question is no longer whether Malen can score regularly. It is how far this partnership can go.

That is where the conversation turns to one of Serie A’s most daunting numbers: 36. Gonzalo Higuaín’s single-season record, set with Napoli, still looms over every prolific striker who catches fire early in the campaign.

Chasing Higuaín’s Shadow

Can Gasperini help Malen mount a serious challenge to that record? On paper, it is a monumental task. Thirty-six goals in a league as tactical and unforgiving as Serie A is not just a benchmark; it is a wall.

Yet the early signs from Roma’s season have at least made the question worth asking. The team attack in waves. Chances come in volume, not in isolation. Malen is rarely stranded, rarely starved of the ball. When Roma tilt the pitch, he becomes the focal point of a storm.

Gasperini’s track record with forwards adds fuel to the idea. His systems have previously elevated strikers and attacking midfielders into double figures and beyond, turning good players into devastating ones. Under him, a centre-forward is never just a finisher; he is the endpoint of a machine built to create overloads and chaos.

If Malen stays fit, keeps his confidence, and Roma maintain this attacking rhythm, the numbers will climb. Whether they climb high enough to trouble Higuaín’s 36 is another matter. That mark demands a season of near-perfection: no long droughts, no extended dips, no injuries at the wrong time.

For now, the record remains a distant summit. But it is no longer a fantasy. It is a target that can at least be plotted on the horizon.

Roma’s Ambition, Reframed

All of this feeds into a bigger, more uncomfortable question for the rest of Serie A: are Roma just a good early-season story, or are they a genuine title threat?

With the campaign still young, it is too early for definitive verdicts, but not too early to recognise patterns. Roma look organised, aggressive and committed to a clear identity. They play with a purpose that suggests this is not a short-lived surge.

The combination is potent: a coach with rare authority, a squad increasingly tailored to his demands, and a striker with the tools to turn dominance into numbers that matter in May, not just in September.

If Gasperini maintains his grip on the club and Malen continues to grow inside this system, Roma will not simply chase records. They will chase something bigger, and far more disruptive, for the established order at the top of Serie A.