Derby Della Capitale: One City, One Team, Once Again

By: chris | March 19th, 2008

Insomnia?
Cold night sweats?
Random chest pains?
Irritable?
Losing focus at work and home when not using copious amounts of recreational drugs?
Do you want to stab really long, sharp knives into your eyes when you see anything colored “baby blue”?

Derby time.

This is supposed to be the “derby of peace”. You know what? Bullshit. This is not a time for social commentary, and it’s not a time to honor someone who had nothing to do with the game besides having a favorite team. That time is long gone for those at a distance - we, the fans - and that time is every day who knew the victim on an intimate basis. It’s a football game. One of the most heated and hate-driven games in the world of sport. Why don’t we just leave it at that? (As you know, I’m not a fan of crossing genres.)

Back to what it’s supposed to be about….the game. Somebody said it in the comments a few days back, a win here would be the scudetto for those suburban fuckers. They suck, once again, and they have nothing to lose and everything to gain here. They’re supposed to get crushed. The Goddamn Giallorossi are supposed to wax their asses up and down that pitch until the Lazies go crying back to the away locker room looking for a pile of Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder to soothe their diaper rashes while Gaby Mudngayi waits in the showers. The merda are supposed to be sent back to the rolling hills with their tails between the hills, looking for a nice flock of sheep to ease their sorrows with for the night.

And if Roma doesn’t cream them, or at least take three points? That’s their scudetto. It’s their season. The most successful season they could ask for, quite frankly. It won’t matter that they got manhandled by Milan, or that they finished last in their Champions League group, or that Claudio Lotito impregnated Tommaso Rocchi and he had an abortion so that Goran Pandev wouldn’t get jealous, or that they’ll head to Serie C2 before they ever win a scudetto again. Their inferiority complex will be soothed for way too long as they await another meaningless Serie A season - meaningless if you excuse the sheer joy they must feel for actually being in the top flight. (11 anni in B, was it?)

Of course, that’s what makes this game so dangerous. It’s not about form. It’s never about form in a derby. And it often has nothing to do with class. Anything can happen in a derby. How in the hell else would you explain Lazio having won even one in their history? They’ve never been the better squad, yet the footballing gods have lapsed and handed them victories, for reasons unknown. Showing us that a derby is a game apart from every game, where all that matters is the two teams that show up on that glorious day. Then again……

Roma is looking good right now. Damn good. It’s the best they’ve looked since the beginning of the season, when they started up with five clean sheets in a row. They’ve dethroned Real Madrid - the same team Lazyo managed a measly point against, the highlight of new millenium for the burini - and they proved their massive cojones with the improbable 3 minute comeback against Milan over the weekend. They’ve got form, class, beauty, The Mister, the gods and all the pretty ladies in the building on their side. Alas, they still have to play the game, to humor the masses.

The last derby we know about: Roma put three on the bastards from the burbs. And I think they were missing a little something…what was it? Oh yeah: Francesco Totti. I hear he’s pretty good. Given that he doesn’t have an infinite number of these left anymore, he may very well be more amped than usual, showing why he’s the best player in the world on his day, and by far the best player this derby has ever seen.

Then there’s that other guy, Daniele De Rossi, who has spent the last month putting on midfield clinics for the best attackers in the world. Quite simply, there is not a single player on the Lazyo squad who is worthy of getting within sniffing range of his golden jock. Their starting XI should be charged admission for the show he puts on while he takes ball after ball after ball off them like it’s candy from their toothless, illiterate children. Not a single player on the Lazyo rosa belongs on the same pitch as Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi. They should thank their lucky fuckin’ stars they get the opportunity to have their pants pulled down and spanked heartily by two living, breathing, ass-kicking Roman deities.

And then there’s the third entry in The Holy Roman Trinity, King Alberto, whose derby exploits are well known in these parts, limited though they may be. All I can say is this: he damn well better start or I’m going to have some words with Spalletti. Screw tactics, you can’t tell me for a second David Pizarro is going to give one fraction of the heart and soul to this game that a born Romanista will. He has to start, and if he does, well Signora Ballotta had better start hiding behind those goal sticks like Paolo Negro….it’s going to be raining bombs. It’s a derby, a Roman derby, and only one team has the Roman legends.

Quite frankly, the three names listed before you are exactly why this derby is absurd: Lazyo is not in Roma’s class, they’ve never been in Roma’s class and they’ll never be in Roma’s class. Sadly, the Giallorossi will simply have to entertain their delusions for another year while we await their eventual - and permanent - descent to the dungeons of calcio, putting all this derby shit to rest.

There’s one team in la citta eterna, and its name is Associazione Sportiva Roma.