Roma on the rise: How the Giallorossi climbed to the Serie A summit in bid to end 25-year Scudetto wait

An hour into Sunday's Serie A clash with Cremonese, Roma were 1-0 up and going top of the table - not that you would have known that from Gasperini's demeanour. He'd been on edge pretty much all afternoon, irked by the decision-making of the match officials, and, in the 62nd minute, he was sent off.

Unsurprisingly, Gasperini lost it and, rather amusingly, he argued afterwards that if he was going to be dismissed, it should have been in the first half rather than the second. Indeed, when he was issued two yellow cards in a matter of seconds just after the hour mark, an irate Gasperini insisted that, in that particular moment, he hadn't actually said anything insulting towards the referee or his assistants.

However, Gasperini's rage quickly dissipated. While he was still reluctantly making his way to the stand, substitute Evan Ferguson scored his first goal for the club. Five minutes after that, a visibly ecstatic Gasperini was out of his seat and slapping colleagues after Wesley finished off the kind of killer counterattack with which the 67-year-old had enjoyed such remarkable success at Atalanta.

By the time the moment came to speak to the press after a 3-1 win that moved Roma two points clear at the summit of Serie A, Gasperini was all smiles - and particularly when he was shown images of a piece of street art that appeared in the Italian capital last week depicting him as a wizard concocting a title challenge with 'grit, heart and sweat'.

"That's wonderful but disconcerting!" Gasperini joked in his post-match interview with DAZN Italia. "The ingredients are fantastic, though, and I agree they are the things that we need. Maybe we can also add a little spice and salt." With Gasperini as coach, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Keeping a lid on the fans' expectations represents a tougher task.

What's interesting, though, is that Gasperini isn't really trying to rain on anyone's parade. He's actually preaching positivity, looking to ride rather than quell the wave of optimism generated by Roma's best start to a season for 10 years.

"We want to keep playing like this," Gasperini said on Sunday. "It's only right to dream in these positions, while at the same time being aware that very few dreams come true in the end. However, we're trying to keep the dream going for a while longer."

The good news for Roma's long-suffering supporters, some of whom weren't even alive when they last won the Scudetto (2001), is that we've already seen enough evidence to suggest that the Gasperini-led title challenge is at least sustainable.

As Ranieri alluded to, nobody anticipated an especially smooth transition from last season to this. Gasperini is a notoriously demanding coach, he has been known to clash with unwilling workers, and it usually takes some time for his methods to take root.

There was, therefore, a fear that his spell at Roma would go the same way as his last stint at one of Italy's biggest clubs, when he was sacked after just five games in charge of Inter all the way back in 2011.

However, Gasperini has done a sensational job building upon the excellent platform put in place by Ranieri, who took over with the Giallorossi in total disarray last November and led the club to a fifth-place finish, after losing just once in the second half of the season.

As a result, Roma have retained a base level of organisation and commitment that has allowed them to continue eking out wins. Indeed, across Europe's 'big five' leagues, only Real Madrid (23) have won more matches by a single-goal margin in 2025 than the Giallorossi (20).

Roma have also kept clean sheets in half of their 12 Serie A games so far, and conceded just six goals - fewer than anyone else in Italy's top flight thanks to the likes of veteran centre-back Gianluca Mancini, goalkeeper Mile Svilar and midfield duo Manu Kone and Bryan Cristante, who are both doing an excellent job of protecting the three-man backline.

However, to say that the excellent defensive record is surprising would be a massive understatement, as Gasperini's Atalanta were renowned - and revered - for their offensive game, which was significantly aided by the willingness to go one-v-one at the back.

Gasperini even brought up his adventurous approach in his first press conference as Roma boss. "I don’t think it's any secret, everyone knows what kind of football I like," he said. "My style of play reflects my own characteristics.

"My teams have always played in a certain way, with intensity and quality, scoring a lot of goals, always focused on scoring one more rather than conceding one fewer."

And yet 10th-placed Udinese are the only team in the top half of Serie A to have scored few goals (12) than the current league leaders (15).

There are signs, though, that Roma are starting to click from an offensive perspective. Sunday's win at Cremonese was the first time that the Giallorossi had scored more than two goals in one game since Gasperini took over.

"It seems to me that in some respects the team has turned a corner," Gasperini argued. "Now I see many players capable of scoring and making important passes, which then put their team-mates in a position to be dangerous.

"The team is playing with more confidence and when we get close to the goal, we create more opportunities than before. In that sense, I'm grateful for the many close matches that we've had, even those we lost in the Europa League (against Lille and Viktoria Plzen last month) because they allowed us to understand and correct some things."

Gasperini's clever ploy of regularly moving Cristante into defence to help the team build from the back has also added a new dimension to their game.

Obviously, Roma could really do with Ferguson catching fire now that he's finally off the mark after his incessant injury issues - particularly as Artem Dovbyk was still flattering to deceive up front before being sidelined by a thigh problem and Paulo Dybala sadly can't be relied upon to stay fit.

Another Argentine attacker, Matias Soule, has certainly upped his game this season but the fact that he's the Giallorossi's top scorer with five goals tells you everything you need to know about their lack of a reliable finisher.

Gasperini has also acknowledged that Roma have repeatedly struggled to turn games around. "The statistics don't lie: we have lost almost every game in which we've fallen behind," he acknowledged recently. "But as you grow in every area, you also gain more confidence and manage to push past obstacles or unlucky moments. That too is a process."

And the feeling is that Roma are only going to improve the longer the season wears on, in much the same way that they seem to finish matches stronger than the majority of their opponents. "We've planned our work so that we're at our physical peak between October and February," the Giallorossi's athletic trainer, Domenico Borelli, revealed to the Gazzetta dello Sport last week.

There is, then, every chance that the best is yet to come from Roma but, as even Gasperini has acknowledged, we'll get a much better idea of where they are right now in Sunday's showdown with Napoli at the Stadio Olimpico.

For all their encouraging results - which include a win over Lazio in the Rome derby - the Giallorossi have lost their only two games to date against fellow title challengers, Inter and AC Milan. 

"We have to get a better result," Gasperini said on Thursday, and that definitely won't be easy against the reigning champions of Italy. However, he will at least have an entire stadium behind him and his team - something nobody would have imagined five months ago.

Gasperini, for his part, insists that he is no miracle-worker, but anything now seems possible for this revitalised Roma. Doubters have become dreamers, and all it took was the right mix of grit, heart and sweat - the core ingredients of any successful title challenge...