Rome

Rome

Associazione Sportiva Roma was founded on June 7, 1927, through the merger of three Rome-based football clubs — Fortitudo-Pro Roma, Football Club di Roma, and Alba-Audace — at the instigation of Italo Foschi, a passionate Roman and football administrator who wanted to create a single, powerful institution capable of challenging the northern Italian dominance of the game. From the outset, Roma was conceived not merely as a football club but as an embodiment of the Eternal City itself — its history, its passion, its stubbornness, and its grandeur. The club's colours, giallorossi (yellow and red), mirror the heraldic colours of the city of Rome, forging an identity between club and city that remains total and unconditional. Roma's supporters — the tifosi giallorossi — are among the most devoted and emotionally invested in all of European football. AS Roma have won three Serie A titles, in 1942, 1983, and 2001, and nine Coppa Italia trophies, making them among the most consistently competitive clubs in Italian football even if major league titles have remained elusive. The 1983 Scudetto, secured under coach Nils Liedholm with a brilliant side featuring Bruno Conti, Roberto Pruzzo, and the Brazilian midfielder Falcao, remains a defining moment in Roman football history. The club reached the European Cup final in 1984, losing a heartbreaking penalty shootout to Liverpool at the Stadio Olimpico — on their own ground — in one of football's most cruelly ironic moments. In recent years, Roma have broken new ground on the European stage: under Jose Mourinho, appointed in 2021, they won the inaugural UEFA Europa Conference League in May 2022, defeating Feyenoord 1–0 in the Tirana final. This was the first European trophy in the club's ninety-four-year history, and the scenes of celebration in Rome were extraordinary. The greatest player in the club's history is Francesco Totti, the "King of Rome," who played his entire 786-match professional career for Roma between 1993 and 2017, scoring 307 goals and embodying everything the club represents: loyalty, pride, and a fierce love of the city. Roma share the Stadio Olimpico with Lazio. The ground, with a capacity of over 72,000, is Rome's principal football arena and the second-largest stadium in Italy. The club has long pursued plans for a new, purpose-built stadium — the Stadio della Roma — and the project has been through numerous iterations over the years; as of 2024–25, planning is advancing for a ground in the Pietralata district of the city. After Mourinho's success and eventual dismissal in January 2024, the club navigated a difficult transitional period with Daniele De Rossi briefly in charge before his own replacement by Ivan Juric. Under American ownership (the Friedkin Group, since 2020) and with a squad built around talent such as Paulo Dybala, Roma continue to attract world-class players and pursue qualification for European football's elite competitions. The club's global fanbase and the passion of its city make it one of football's truly irreplaceable institutions.