The cover story of Serie A Matchday 17 is just one: Daniele De Rossi comes home as an opponent. With Genoa. With wounded pride. With a heart that, for the first time, must learn to stay silent.
There are matches that don’t need introductions, because they speak for themselves. And then there are others that turn into a narrative, a short novel, a wound reopening under the lights of the Olimpico. Roma–Genoa, Matchday 17 of Serie A, is all of this. But above all, it is Daniele De Rossi against Roma, for the first time as an opponent.
It’s not just a league match. It’s an emotional reckoning. It’s the return of a captain, a symbol, a man who for twenty years embodied an idea of romanismo that went far beyond football.
This time, however, De Rossi won’t walk out of the tunnel with the armband on his arm, nor will he take his place (so to speak) on the bench facing the Curva Sud wearing Roma colors. Instead, he’ll sit on the opposite bench, in a different jacket. And with an unprecedented mission, painful even to contemplate: trying to make his boyhood club lose.
He spoke about it openly, without filters, in a long interview with DAZN alongside Massimo Ambrosini, with the raw honesty that has always defined him. Because behind this return there is also a desire for revenge—never shouted, but deep—toward a club hierarchy that, starting with the Friedkin ownership, chose to turn its back on him.
De Rossi isn’t looking for loud, theatrical revenge. He doesn’t raise his voice. But he doesn’t forget. “The owners were hanging on my every word; from a footballing point of view I always had plenty of freedom. They started asking me about things before confirming me for the next three years. Then things began to crack, but what happened, my staff and I didn’t deserve it. You’re never ready for a dismissal, but I thought then and I still think now that my conscience is clear. I never betrayed anyone who was there, I never used the ‘power’ I had in that city. If I had betrayed myself, I wouldn’t be this proud”.
This is where the story becomes human before it becomes sporting. Because his dismissal from Roma wasn’t just a professional step, but an identity fracture. A separation that hurts more for what could have been than for what actually was.
Roma, after all, remains an undying love. “Watching them now, I feel a bit sorry about what happened… they had the breakthrough I had predicted. First year you build, second you grow, third you fight for the Scudetto. We weren’t completely crazy”, DDR admits, recalling the three-year project he was never allowed to see through. Words that sound like a melancholic whisper rather than an accusation. But the weight is the same.
On Monday night at the Olimpico, all of this will resurface. Every applause, every whistle, every TV shot will hit like a punch to the gut. Because De Rossi isn’t just any former figure returning: he’s someone who represents “a big piece of Roma and Italian football,” as he says himself. A man who has always chosen dignity, even when he could have used his power. “If I had betrayed myself, I wouldn’t be this proud,” he explains. And perhaps that is the key to his pain: losing Roma without ever losing himself.
Now there is Genoa. There is a relegation battle to win. There is work to be carried out with seriousness, because De Rossi became a coach for this very reason: not to lie to those who follow him. But there is also an unprecedented inner battle. Because on Monday, for the first time in his life, Daniele De Rossi will have to set his heart aside. Or at least try.
It will be the cover story of Matchday 17. And whatever the outcome, it won’t be a match like any other. For anyone. Especially for him. When the heart will beat louder. Right at home.
L’articolo Sometimes they come back… as opponents: De Rossi against his Roma proviene da Soccer Made In Italy.
