Esce Buonanotte! echoed under the rafters of the Stadio Olimpico.
Roberto De Zerbi’s decision to withdraw Brighton’s Argentine teenager felt appropriate, poetic even. Not because Facundo Buonanotte endured a difficult game against Leonardo Spinazzola whose crosses for Romelu Lukaku were a regular threat. His surname, an indicator of Italian heritage, translates as good night here. Buonanotte, Brighton. They were 4-0 down in Rome.
Fifteen minutes remained on the clock but the game and the tie seemed over. It had been tucked into bed under the silk sheets provided by Buonanotte’s compatriot, Paulo Dybala. As was the case in Monza at the weekend, Dybala scored and assisted and his team found the net four times. Buonanotte a tutti.
Named the Serie A MVP in 2020, Dybala was the difference in Juventus’ last title-winning season, eclipsing Cristiano Ronaldo when it came to deciding the games that mattered against Inter. A joy to watch then, he has been lately too. This season’s MVP in Serie A will likely be Dybala’s international team-mate, the league’s top scorer and Inter’s skipper, Lautaro Martinez. But Dybala has not only resembled prime Dybala these past six weeks. He has touched the divine like Adam reaching for God in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. Eight goals in eight games in all competitions. A hat-trick against Torino, featuring a curler from outside the box. The free-kick in Monza. The way he sublimely controlled the ball against Feyenoord. His tango with Leandro Paredes on Thursday, which sprung the offside trap and sent him through one v one against Jason Steele who he rounded with a couple of steps Carlos Gardel would have been proud of.
NO OFFISDE… GOAL! 🖥️
A composed Paulo Dybala finish means Brighton must come from behind against Roma…#UEL pic.twitter.com/cj0rXUfH3K
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) March 7, 2024
Some have put Dybala’s sparkling form down to the change of coach at Roma. On the one hand, Daniele De Rossi has downplayed his influence and an initial switch in formation. “Paulo would score goals even if we played 5-5-0,” he said. The system has nothing to do with it. Roma have alternated between 4-3-3 and the back 3 used by Jose Mourinho. On the other, De Rossi has lent on his experience of playing nearly his entire career with Francesco Totti. “In 20 years of playing together no-one told Francesco what to do,” De Rossi recalled. “All we had to do was get our heads down when he had the ball. We’ve got a player like that in Dybala and have to make the most of it. You have to give talented players a bit more freedom. The important thing is when he goes someone else covers the space he leaves.”
(Giampiero Sposito/Getty Images)
Thursday was the perfect night not only for the result and the continued momentum Roma have generated under De Rossi. But because after 72 minutes, he was able to wrap Dybala up in cotton wool and replace him with January signing Tommaso Baldanzi. The 30-year-old has regularly taken Roma fans breath away. He has also caused them to hold it whenever he has pulled up, grimaced and cried. Nothing provokes more anxiety at the Olimpico than his fitness. But Dybala has started 23 games in all competitions this season and has played more regularly at Roma than supporters of his old club, Juventus, might have expected. Baldanzi’s arrival has given De Rossi another option with which to rotate Dybala, although he has also been facilitated by his team taking the lead in six of seven league games. Roma have only been behind for 45 minutes. All of this makes ringing changes that little bit easier.
Roma running 𝙧𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙣𝙩 😤
Bryan Crisante scores Roma’s fourth as it becomes a case of damage limitation for Brighton…#UEL pic.twitter.com/VIz1h8jYp2
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) March 7, 2024
Baldanzi’s acquisition was interpreted in some quarters as succession planning in the event Dybala leaves in the summer. He has an absurdly low buy-out clause of around €13m, an acknowledgment of the pay cut he took to join. De Zerbi explained Brighton’s defeat in terms of an experience deficit between his team and one that has reached back-to-back European finals. Dybala has been a Champions League finalist too and one of his most memorable performances came in Juventus’ knock-out of Barcelona in 2017. Along with Neymar, he was fleetingly spoken about at the time as a future Ballon d’Or winner in the post-Ronaldo and Lionel Messi era. Seeing him, since then, playing in second-tier competitions has jarred. A player as aesthetically delightful to watch as Dybala should be in the Champions League.
“I was still playing when Roma last played in the Champions League,” De Rossi said. “It feels like 20 years ago. It’s unacceptable.”
His attitude has served as a contrast with Mourinho’s repeated insistence that Roma, a team with two former Serie A MVPs and the third highest wage bill in the league, isn’t cut out to qualify for it. But making it would help Roma appeal to Dybala should someone come and cut a cheque for his release clause. Dybala has rediscovered his smile in the Eternal City. “Maybe I was Roman in another life,” he said, conforming to the stereotype about how often men think about the Roman empire. He has never forgotten the reception he got at the Square Colosseum when he signed either. Another of Rome’s landmarks, the Trevi fountain, was the setting of his marriage proposal to Oriana Sabatini.
Roma must hope he renews his vows with the club and that he does so without a buy-out clause. Dybala is too good to lose too cheaply. Mourinho used to say “the music is different” with Dybala. It’s night and day. Buonanotte a tutti.
(Photo: Claudio Pasquazi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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