One of the most exciting derbies in world football, the Derby Della Capitale is a match that always promises to be interesting, and in most of the cases it delivers.
This Sunday’s game will be a must win game for Roma if they want to get back to the top position they lost last weekend and a crucial match for Lazio to stay in the fight for the European qualification spots.
Form
Lazio started the season in good fashion, despite being a bit inconsistent with some very poor showings (matchday's two and four) in between some solid performances, but have declined a lot in the past four games.
They won five of the first seven games and were competing for the Champions League qualification spots, but since then lost three of the last four games, including a very poor performance at home against AC Milan in the last matchday.
It has to be pointed out that during the somehow bright start most of the wins were at home (four of the five) and against relatively poor opponents. The two defeats were awful performances in which they were defeated by Chievo Verona 4-0 and Napoli 5-0, in both cases away from home. Lazio also lost the Supercoppa de Italia against Juventus and the Champions League play-off against Bayer Leverkusen early in the season, in both cases being outplayed pretty easily.
Roma on the other hand are battling for the scudetto as they mostly did in the past couple of seasons, but haven’t been very convincing in several games. They showed great performances in games against Juventus and Fiorentina but looked lackluster against Sampdoria and Sassuolo among others. In the last matchday they lost the top of the table against Inter as they were defeated 1-0 in the San Siro, but are still only one point behind them and Fiorentina in the table as of now. In the Champions League they are currently second in their group after a big win against direct rivals Bayern Leverkusen (coincidentally the team that eliminated Lazio in the play-offs) and with two games left they're the favorites to qualify with Barcelona.
Team news
The bad news for the Giallorossi is that they’ll be missing several key players for the derby. Alessandro Florenzi, Daniele De Rossi and Maicon were injured during the Champions League game against Leverkusen last Wednesday, Francesco Totti and Seydou Keita are still affected by injuries and Miralem Pjanic will be suspended. The Bosnian in particular will be a huge blow, as he has been superb this season and easily Roma’s most important player, scoring five goals and being involved in many more. For the biancocelesti Stefan De Vrij is still out with a long term injury.
Predicted line ups:
Roma: Szczesny; Maicon, Manolas, Rudiger, Digne; Florenzi, Nainggolan, Keita; Salah, Dzeko, Gervinho.
Lazio: Marchetti; Basta, Mauricio, Gentiletti, Lulic; Onazi, Biglia; Candreva, Milinkovic-Savic, Anderson; Klose
Prediction: Lazio will be a tough challenge for Roma, but the “home” team will prevail in the end securing the three points. 2-1 for the hosts.