De Rossi: Staying at Roma a ‘bad footballing decision’ but ‘no regrets’ | OneFootball

Daniele De Rossi made his child ‘dream’ come true by staying at Roma for 18 consecutive seasons, but he also admitted it was a ‘bad footballing decision’ as he had fewer chances to win silverware than he’d have had elsewhere.

As a kid born in Rome, the former Giallorossi player and manager always dreamt of representing his local club, which he joined when he was 12, starting a path that would turn a young and inexperienced striker into one of the best midfielders the Stadio Olimpico crowd would ever watch on the pitch.

De Rossi went through his illustrious career talking with Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Jamie Carragher, and Ian Wright in the Overlap Podcast, conceding that the will to wear a single shirt in Italy and Europe is something that ‘starts from the love of the people for this club’.

Roma’s Italian midfielder #07 Lorenzo Pellegrini celebrates with Roma’s Italian coach Daniele De Rossi (R) after scoring a goal during the Italian Serie A football math between AS Roma and Sassuolo at the Olympic stadium in Rome on March 17, 2024. (Photo by tiziana fabi / AFP) (Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)

De Rossi: I stayed in Rome ‘for the love of the people for this club’

“Everybody here in Rome says that they want to play for Roma, and sometimes it happens,” De Rossi said.

“When you are in Rome you have to choose – sometimes you are so lucky that you can choose to go to a better club or to stay here.

“I made this decision, and it’s a bad footballing decision but for me it’s okay, I’m not leaving with regrets.”

De Rossi made his Roma debut in 2001, a few months after watching the Giallorossi win the Scudetto under Fabio Capello, an achievement he was never able to replicate in his 18 seasons at the Stadio Olimpico, despite finishing second ‘nine times’.

“I signed for Roma, for the youth side, when I was 12,” the 41-year-old manager continued.

“I never played, I was on the bench for the first three of four years, I was a totally different player. I was a striker. Very light, I was a delicate, skinny guy, technically good but not aggressive.

“It’s something that starts from the love of the people for this club. It’s not just me, Totti or Giannini, it’s many of us.

“Some of them are not good enough to stay, sometimes they go on loan, they follow other paths, but it’s our dream, when you grow up as a Roman kid, you dream about this.

“Football is very very important for us in Italy, especially in Rome.

“So there’s a lot of pressure, even if we are aware that we’re not Real Madrid, we’re not winning.

“They love the loyalty, the effort you make on the pitch, even if you’re not from Rome. They want to win, they would like to.

“We spent 10-12 years not winning but coming very close to the first place. I’ve been nine times second in the league, it’s crazy. Against clubs that built up the team with 200 million more than us.

“In those seasons, you never won [a title] but won a lot of matches in those seasons, so people are comfortable with the performance you gave.”

De Rossi also revealed he remembers ‘everything’ about the day he was first asked to play as a midfielder, as his ‘career changed’ after that moment.

“Maybe I was 16, or 17,” he recalled.

“We were losing a match against Arezzo, I was on the bench and the captain, who was playing as a midfielder, got a red card, and the coach called me and said, ‘go and play in Fabio’s place’.

“I played there and we won 2-1,

“This coach came with me in the Primavera, and that summer seven midfielders from Primavera went to the pre-season with the first team.

“I kept on playing and then Fabio Capello called me after watching me play for Primavera, and I never went back.”

De Rossi would start coaching Roma in January 2024 before being suddenly sacked at the beginning of the current season, although things didn’t improve under his replacement Ivan Juric, forcing the club to hire Claudio Ranieri as their third manager of the campaign.