Roma boss Daniele De Rossi addressed the media ahead of Saturday’s highly anticipated Derby della Capitale with Lazio.
During today’s press conference, De Rossi discussed various topics including questions regarding his long-term future at the club.
“As a player I have many memories of derbies, many good nights and many bad ones. I remember in particular the first derby I played, the one with Amantino Mancini’s back-heel goal,” said the Roma legend. “But the first derbies of my career were always extremely nerve-wracking. I suffered a lot before playing them.”
“You have to prepare for the derby like you do for other games, but knowing that it can give you much more in terms of a confidence boost. We have to remain focused,” he added.
“We played one of our worst games against Lecce, but we still created many scoring opportunities, same with Sassuolo. We have no problems in attack. When something’s not working, it’s not one thing or the other, it’s the whole team. The attackers shouldn’t be the ones scoring. It should be the team scoring.”
“Tammy Abraham? Abraham is fine and does everything the others do, but today we will understand more regarding his fitness levels and readiness. Injuries like his require certain deadlines to be respected,” said De Rossi of the English striker who has been out since June 2023.
“My future? With the Friedkins we’ve spoken very often about the future, but the most important future for us is the one between now and the next two months. That’s what matters and that’s what we’re focusing on.”
“We have very little material to prepare for Lazio given Tudor’s recent arrival. We’ve been focusing on ourselves a lot these past few days. I have a lot of respect for Tudor, a person with whom I have a good relationship, he is part of the current of coaches like Gasperini. He is very intelligent and will adapt to the team he has found at his disposal.”
“Rotations? We will not blow things up. We will try and play similarly to the way we played a while ago. In Serie A you can’t just stroll on any pitch, maybe only Inter can do it. It’s only right to think about our mistakes but we also need to analyze our opponents. Lecce is not easy to face due to many small factors, that was a tricky game and they made us struggle.”
“The referees? On the pitch I try to protest certain decisions based on the evidence and in Lecce we were in right. We were damaged by a penalty that wasn’t called in our favor. But that’s it.”
