First the dish symbolizing the victory of the scudettothen the Italian Cup. See the captain of Roma Femminile Elisa Bartoli raising two trophies to the sky in six days cannot be considered a novelty, nor a coincidence. Roma’s victory is not just the victory of a football team: it is the victory of a club that since 2018 – the year the women’s section was established – has taken one step at a time, without ever going beyond the leg and revolutionizing the squad, rather adding summer after summer, January after January, only functional pieces. The famous “correct grafts“and not players”it took a lot to get ite”. The idea, it must be recognized, was that of president Pallotta and the then vice president Mauro Baldissoni, Guido Fienga maintained continuity, the investments and structures made available by the Friedkins they were the icing on the cake. A cake in which men and women have equal dignity: the day will come, hopefully soon, when this will no longer be news and there will be no need to reiterate it, write it or underline it, but given that in recent months Roma, among the other things, it has been accused of being a sexist company, it should be reiterated that in Trigoria male and female footballers have the same rights and duties. While waiting for one day to have the same salaries (all over the world, obviously), it should be highlighted that the CEO, Lina Souloukou, was in the front row to pay tribute to the Italian champions at Tre Fontane. And it should also be underlined that the championship celebration was held at Bernardini, the heart of the club, and not at Giulio Onesti, where the women’s team trains. Because Rome is one.
Female Rome, the reasons for a fair success
In six years he has changed the technical guide only once, but without results reasons: Betty Bavagnoliwho three years ago was the coach on the day of the first trophy (it was an Italian Cup, the final was played in Emilia-Romagna, in Reggio Emilia, yesterday Cesena, and was always decided on penalties…) has become the manager of the entire women’s section, with the Turin athlete Alessandro Spugna who after two scudettos and a Super Cup completes his personal treble, and that of the club, which in addition to the successes with the first team has won the Primavera scudetto four times in a row. The top and the base, and it matters little that this year the race stopped in the semi-final against Milan. Victory on the pitch, victory off it: because the Roma women’s team, from having a few hundred spectators in home league matches (excluding big matches) has managed to build a loyal audience, which every week hunts for a place in the stands or, in case of yesterday, Friday at 9.30pm (time chosen to guarantee the broadcast of the final in prime time on a generalist channel such as Rai 2) he carries 700 kilometers round trip on his shoulders to get to Cesena and paint the reserved Distinti sector yellow-red. Many of those who were in Cesena yesterday were also for the Champions League in Monaco, Paris, Amsterdam and last year in Barcelona, an opponent against whom Roma perhaps definitively entered a new dimension, winning the Olimpico and playing in front to 40 thousand people. Including skeptics. Roma won the final in Cesena five days after the championship celebration, but Spugna (rightly) found a way to not be satisfied: certainly not with the result, but with the performance. Because if the evening ended with the music of ‘Thank you Rome‘ from the speakers and with the Roma women in the national team singing “We’re going to Norway“ (Friday 31st in Oslo there is a very important match in the process of qualifying for European Championship 2025), it must be said that it started very badly, with Ceasar’s error giving the lead to Hammarlund and with Fiorentina ahead 3-1 with a quarter of an hour left in regulation time. Then, however, came the 3-2 of the Japanese Minami and the 3-3 in the 90th minute of the Canadian Viens, after Giacinti had equalized the lead of De La Fuente’s team in the first half. The common element of Roma’s three goals is the same number of assists from Manuela Giugliano: Totti’s number 10, Dybala’s mask, superior feet, like the hands of Camelia Ceasar, who when it comes to saving penalties already knows that everything will end with Roma on the stage and with the cup in hand.
