Brighton Europa League opponents: AS Roma
The Europa League adventure continues. Brighton will face Associazione Sportiva Roma in the knockout round of 16, the first leg taking place in the Italian capital Rome followed by the return at the Amex a week later.
I Giallorossi (an imaginative nickname of Yellows and Reds) are three time Serie A champions, most recently in 2001. They have won the Coppa Italia nine times, although not since 2008.
Their yellow/gold and purple/red colours are the traditional colours of the Roman Empire. The club crest features the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, suckling from the wolf that rescued them from the Tiber.
Roma are sometimes referred to as I lupi, or the wolves. Hopefully, the Albion fare better against these Italian Wolves than they did the English Wolves in the FA Cup last week.
Apart from one season in the early 1950s, Roma have been an ever present feature of the Italian top tier. The club was formed in 1927 when a senior Roman Fascist Party representative merged three of the city’s football clubs to create a competitor to the stronger northern Italian teams like Juventus.
Stadio Olimpico, their 70,000 seater stadium is the second largest in Italy after Milan’s San Siro. Completed in 1953, it hosted the 1960 Rome Olympics and was the main venue for the 1990 World Cup.
Roma share the stadium with the city’s other main club and their fierce rivals, Lazio. The stadium is also home to Italy’s Rugby Union side for Six Nations games. It serves as the regular venue for Coppa Italia finals and has hosted two Champions League finals to date.
The legendary Francesco Totti holds Roma’s records for most appearances and goals, spending his entire career at the club from 1993 to 2017.
Daniele De Rossi, Mo Salah, Alisson Becker, Carlo Ancellotti, Falcao, Rudi Voller, and Gabriel Batitusta are just some of the famous names to wear the yellow and red. There are no known player connections between the Albion and AS Roma.
Roma have a huge number of groups of ultras who mostly occupy the Olimpico South Curve. The most notorious of these being the Fedayn. Some 90 individual groups are listed on the Roma Ultras website.
Oddly, Roma’s first manager in 1927 was British, a man named William Garbutt. Other familiar names to have coached the side include Claudio Ranieri, Luis Enrique, Fabio Capello, Sven Goran Ericksson and most recently José Mourhino. Their current coach is former player De Rossi, who also happens to be a good friend of Roberto De Zerbi.
Roma have been American owned since 2011 and were bought outright by US billionaire DN Friedkin in 2000. Their most famous fan was opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, although for unknown reasons slap-happy film star Will Smith has also claimed to be a supporter.
I Giallorossi might have a less illustrious European competition history than Albion’s group stage opponents Marseille and Ajax, but they have tasted continental success very recently.
They won the inaugural Europa Conference League under Mourinho in 2022. Last season, they went all the way to the Europa League final, only to find serial winners Sevilla a little too strong.
Roma reached the European Cup final in 1984, where they lost on penalties to a Liverpool side denied a quadruple that season because Brighton eliminated the Reds from the FA Cup at the Goldstone Ground. I Giallorossi also reached the 1991 UEFA Cup final, losing to fellow Italian side Inter Milan.
Familiar names in their current squad are ex-Chelsea forward Tammy Abraham, Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku, former Wolves goalkeeper Rui Patricio and one-time Manchester United centre back Chris Smalling.
All roads lead to Rome, but does glory or defeat await Albion’s brave gladiators? Whatever the outcome, you should probably prepare yourself for a lot of Roman-based puns and jokes.
Warren Morgan @WarrenBHAFC
