Who are the Last Four Roma Strikers To Score 20 Goals in Serie A? | OneFootball

The story of AS Roma’s attack is a tale of both grandeur and famine, haunted by the ghosts of past masters. In the last handful of campaigns, the club has shuffled its deck of attacking talent with hopes renewed and patience frayed: Tammy Abraham, a wrecking ball on his day; Romelu Lukaku, a proven force who flirted with dominance; Artem Dovbyk, the Ukrainian brought in as a new hope; and Paulo Dybala, a conjurer whose magic always seemed just one act short of the miraculous. Each has shown flashes, each has shouldered dreams, but none—not one—has shattered that most critical threshold in Serie A: 20 league goals.

This hard, unyielding fact hovers over Trigoria like a storm cloud. Abraham’s first year ended on 17, albeit with plenty more coming in Europe en route to Conference League glory. Lukaku, a late arrival, stirred confidence without ever threatening to rewrite history, netting 14 domestically as well as chipping in with goals on the road to Budapest. Dovbyk’s promise remains unfulfilled, and Dybala, for all his guile, operates more as an orchestrator than an executioner these days.

Lack of a Goal-Scorer Leaves Roma in the Lurch

The lack of a pure goalscorer has prompted soccer odds providers to lose confidence in the Giallorossi. The latest online soccer odds currently make Roma a distant 11/1 shot to win the Scudetto next term, some way behind reigning champions and 7/4 favorites Napoli. Brighton’s Evan Ferguson is rumored to be the next in line to take on the role of the Eternal City’s main striker, but whether he can plunder the goals required to mount an assault on the Serie A title remains to be seen.

Indeed, just four men in the last quarter of a century have managed to net 20 league goals for Roma, a stat hardly worth shouting about. But who were those predatory hitmen, and just how many did they manage to score between them? Let’s find out.

Edin DZeko

Edin Džeko’s 2016/17 stands as one of the most riveting individual campaigns in modern Roma history—a relentless, unblinking assault that left Serie A defenders grasping at shadows. The Bosnian didn’t just lead the line, he demolished it, racking up a towering 29 goals and clinching the Capocannoniere crown. Yet the brilliance of the Bosnian’s year wasn’t solely rooted in numbers; it was how he did it.

Luciano Spalletti’s Roma was a machine built for vertical thrust, fluid movement, and high stakes. Mohamed Salah tore off the flanks, Radja Nainggolan generated chaos through the middle, and Džeko, ever the target and the terminator, turned chances into certainties. His conversion rate neared 18%, and he scored in clusters, with four braces being his signature moments.

His presence elevated those around him: Roma set a club record with 87 points, but it still wasn’t enough to secure the title, finishing runners-up to Max Allegri’s Juventus juggernaut. The Giallorossi’s 90-goal tally remains a testament to an attack reaching full throttle, and at its heart stood Džeko, anchor and executioner.

Francesco Totti

Some seasons are written in ink, others in gold. Francesco Totti’s 2006/07 campaign belongs to the latter. At 30, many doubted whether the Capitano could reinvent himself. He responded not only by mastering Spalletti’s revolutionary “false nine” system, but by seizing the European Golden Shoe, becoming just the second Italian ever to win the award one year on from Luca Toni’s exploits.

Totti’s 26 league goals were an education in composure and invention. He moved seamlessly between creator and destroyer, dictating tempo before ghosting into space to finish, often with a coolness that made chaos look like choreography. He converted chances at a stunning 62% clip and registered goals in 19 different Serie A matches.

Roma’s football that season was heady, helter-skelter, and poetic. They bagged 74 league goals, finished second in Serie A, yet claimed the Coppa Italia in an emphatic final against Inter. Central to their frenzy was Totti, orchestrating and executing, a captain dragging his side higher by sheer force of will.

Vincenzo Montella

If ever a striker delivered amid uncertainty, it was Vincenzo Montella. The 2004/05 campaign was chaos: Roma cycled through four managers in total, suffered defensive lapses, and careened to eighth place. Against this backdrop of tumult, Montella emerged as the club’s unwavering heartbeat.

He plundered 21 league goals with clinical regularity—a goals-per-game ratio of 0.64 that outstripped most of his peers. The Italian poacher’s superpower was his movement: ghosting between defenders, darting toward goal, and finishing with an unerring sense of timing. Headers, acrobatic volleys, deft tap-ins—his arsenal was both complete and unpredictable. Fans may remember the season for crisis and frustration, but Montella’s “Aeroplanino” celebration became a small solace, a symbol of what was still possible.

Gabriel Batistuta

Epic campaigns require epic characters, and for Roma’s 2000/01 title charge, fate delivered Gabriel Batistuta. Signed at age 31 for a record €36.15m fee from Fiorentina, the Argentinian powerhouse embodied drama, hunger, and brazen ambition. This was no ordinary import; Roma bought him to exorcise two decades of Scudetto heartbreak.

He delivered with thunder: 20 league goals, each more precious than the last, helping the Giallorosi to the title for just the third time ever. Supported by the vision of Totti, the dynamism of Cafu, and the toughness of Emerson, Batistuta was the tip of a balanced, ruthless Roma spear. The team netted 68 and conceded just 33, an exquisite balance that culminated in a cathartic Scudetto, a first since 1983. It remains Roma’s most recent.