Gasperini Transforms Roma's Identity

Roma have not just changed coach. They’ve changed gear.

Gian Piero Gasperini has wasted no time stamping his mark on the Giallorossi, and Lorenzo Bettoni and Wayne Girard have taken a deep dive into how the veteran tactician has reshaped the club’s early-season identity.

From the touchline in Verona to the corridors of Trigoria, Gasperini already looks like a man in full control. His gestures, his demands, his relentless energy on the sideline during the Serie A clash with Hellas Verona at the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi told their own story: this is his team now.

A New Power Figure in Trigoria

Inside the club, his influence is growing fast. Bettoni and Girard explore the sense that Gasperini now carries a level of authority that rivals – and perhaps surpasses – that of his predecessors, even a figure as towering as José Mourinho.

Tactical decisions, squad management, long-term planning: Gasperini’s hand seems to be on almost every lever. That kind of power can tilt a season. It can also redefine a club’s ambitions.

Roma haven’t hidden from big targets in recent years, but this feels different. With Gasperini, the project looks sharper, more aggressive, less willing to settle for a place in the chasing pack.

Malen, Goals, and a Record in Sight

Then there is Donyell Malen.

The Dutch forward sits at the heart of the discussion as Bettoni and Girard weigh up just how far Gasperini can push him. Under this coach, strikers tend to run hot. Movements are drilled, spaces are created, chances arrive in waves.

So the question naturally follows: could Gasperini turn Malen into a genuine threat to Gonzalo Higuaín’s fabled 36-goal Serie A record?

It’s a bold target. The season is still young, and the grind of the campaign has barely begun. Yet the conversation isn’t dismissed. Instead, they pick apart the numbers, the patterns of play, and the kind of high-tempo, attacking football that might give a forward like Malen the platform to chase something extraordinary.

Title Talk in the Capital

All of this leads to a bigger, more unsettling thought for the rest of Serie A: what if Roma are not just chasing a top-four spot, but something far greater?

If Gasperini keeps this level of control and Malen continues to thrive in his system, Bettoni and Girard argue that Roma could be nurturing both a genuine title contender and a record-hunting goalscorer at the same time.

For a club that has lived too long on the edge of its own potential, that possibility changes everything.