To the hell and back: Gasperini embodies Roma’s title dream

For so long a legend in Bergamo, could Gian Piero Gasperini become the oldest coach to win Serie A with the Giallorossi? Giancarlo Rinaldi looks at his long journey to get to this point.

The dust had hardly settled on Inter’s historic defeat by Novara – the first in more than half a century in Italy’s top division – than the cruel and soulless press statement was released. After barely 10 weeks – and one draw and four defeats in five matches – Gian Piero Gasperini’s time with the Nerazzurri was over. The sage sports scribes had seen their misgivings confirmed – a good coach, perhaps, but not one worthy of one of the nation’s biggest names. A man to battle for honours in the provinces, maybe, but not for a league title.

That fateful day, almost exactly 14 years ago, could have been the defining moment of the tactician’s career. He had been a rising star but, Icarus-like, had perhaps flown too close to the sun. He went off to lick his wounds and start the slow journey of rebuilding his reputation.

In all honesty, those who remember his appointment with Inter in the summer of 2011 will recall the scale of the task in front of him. This was the squad that Jose Mourinho had done wonders with to win the treble in 2010, but was now in the process of a generational change. A period of what could at best be most kindly described as transition had started under Rafa Benitez and Leonardo before the man from Grugliasco took the reins. It looked like a daunting task for anyone – it would prove to be an almost unmitigated disaster for the 70-odd days it lasted.

After working in the Juventus youth set-up, Gasp first started carving out his coaching career with Crotone and then Genoa. Across nearly 200 games with the Grifone, he started to get a reputation for playing attractive, expansive football that brought them out of Serie B and made them a force to be reckoned with in the top division. With his trademark three-man defence and an aggressive attitude, they qualified for Europe too and made him one of the up-and-coming names on the benches of the Italian game.

The Inter interlude, however, risked ruining his name forever. Now he was marked as a failure at one of Serie A’s big three, and question marks were raised about his ability to challenge for major honours. There are plenty of players, as well as managers, who find they give their best outside of the glare of the regular expectation of silverware. It was time for him to start building something special outwith the traditional powerhouses of the game.

That would not happen overnight, however, and his journey to find the club where his ideas could flourish was not a straightforward one. He was one of Maurizio Zamparini’s many hire-’em and fire-’em victims in Palermo – no shame in that – and a return to Genoa failed to truly recapture the heights he had scaled. In the summer of 2016, though, he would start the story that would ultimately make him something of a household name across Europe.

Given time and the resources he required, he made Atalanta synonymous with himself. For a club so often seen as an elevator one – bobbing up and down between Serie A and Serie B – he gave stability and strength and a true identity to their play. Although the personnel would change over the years, the attitude did not. It delivered the Europa League but also countless other great results and performances down the best part of a decade in charge. They had the odd dalliance with dreams of the Scudetto over that time, but the closest they ever got was a third-place finish on a number of occasions. This summer, he decided it was time to move on and have another crack at a bigger club.

It is a switch which, so far, has been Roma’s gain and Atalanta’s loss. The capital club is off to a flyer, which bodes well since the accepted wisdom about Gasperini sides is that they take time to fully implement his teachings. If that is the case, there could be some real fun in store at the Stadio Olimpico. On the flip side, the poor Bergamaschi have become draw specialists under Ivan Juric, and the question marks raised over his appointment have grown bigger with every passing week. In truth, their old coach was always going to be a hard act to follow, but their plunge in fortunes must be a sore contrast with the rise of his current club.

In truth, it is not such a miracle that the Giallorossi are up challenging at the top end of the table. After a sluggish start last season under Daniele De Rossi and that man Juric again – they were down near the drop zone after 14 weeks – they hit their stride under Claudio Ranieri, though, and went on a run of outstanding form. It hinted that the squad was there to perhaps enter the Scudetto reckoning if they could avoid such poor form in the opening stages of this campaign.

It is probably too early to say if this squad is strong enough to bring a fourth league title their way, and injuries to some key players are already starting to hit. However, it is a fact that Serie A is one of the most wide-open championships in Europe, and that could pave the way for another surprise winner. At 67 – he would be 68 by the summer – it would make Gasperini the oldest coach to win the title, with the current holder of that honour none other than Luciano Spalletti.

It would also finally silence those ghosts of November 2011, which some people thought he might never recover from. It has been a long, hard slog, but the new Roma boss has rarely got tired of proving people wrong. A triumph in Rome would show he is not just pretty in the provinces but could be crowned in the capital as well. He already deserves his place among Italian coaching’s elite – but it would be nice to have that little green, white and red shield to prove it.