Francesco Totti and Walter Sabatini are looking forward to seeing Edin Dzeko and Mohamed Salah meet in Inter vs. Liverpool tomorrow and highlight how the Reds’ star has changed since his time at Roma.
Salah, Dzeko and Totti played for two seasons together at the Stadio Olimpico between 2015 and 2017. The Egypt international scored 34 goals in 83 games with the Giallorossi before joining Liverpool in 2017.
“They [Dzeko and Salah] were so strong together. An amazing attacking partnership,” Totti told La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“It’s no coincidence that Dzeko scored so many goals thanks to Salah’s assists becoming the Serie A’s Capocannoniere with 29 goals.”
That Roma side, which also included the likes of Alisson, Antonio Rudiger, Radja Nainggolan, Lucas Digne, Miralem Pjanic, Daniele De Rossi and Wojciech Szczesny, had been ‘built’ by Walter Sabatini, who is now the Salernitana sporting director.
“Salah has become a lethal goalscorer in Liverpool, I am sure it will be amazing to see them play tomorrow,” the 66-year-old told Gazzetta.
“Signing two players like him and Dzeko made me love my job even more.
“I’ve always known that Salah could have scored many goals. Now he has the space to hurt. In Italy, he also had defensive duties, but he’s always had the characteristics to score consistently.”
Salah has scored 148 goals in 229 appearances with Liverpool. Roma finished the 2015-16 campaign in third place after replacing Rudi Garcia with Luciano Spalletti in the middle of the season. They were the Serie A runner-ups in 2016-17 and Dzeko was crowned Capocannoniere with 29 league goals.
Totti e Sabatini raccontano Dzeko e Salah: "Reti e fantasia, sarà uno spettacolo" https://t.co/qNYTuY0qMg https://t.co/WwrAzG2ABw
— OdeonZ (@OdeonZ__) February 15, 2022
Salah’s transformation really is remarkable.
And I don’t think he’d ever have reached this level in Serie A.
That’s the huge problem with Serie A. The tactics are too rigid, players aren’t given enough freedom to express themselves, and often there’s too much player turnover for players to find form.
Look at that Roma squad from 2015–
GK: Scezny, the current Juve number 1
DF: Rudiger, Digne. Manolas, Douglas Maicon
MF: Pjanic. Strootman. Naingolan, De Rossi
AT: Totti, Dezko, Salah
surprising they didnt do better than they did!
Image they hadn’t sold any of those players and didn’t sign anyone new.
Just stated exactly the same and replaced
Totti with Zaniolo.
They’d be financially better off and have a team that had played together for 7 years. Ok ok some players might have left but they could easily have retained the majority of the squad if they hadn’t wasted time and money on the transfer market.
@Maldini’s Heir
Nonsense – Totti would still keep Zaniolo out of the team!
Are rigid tactics really an issue? The English media harp on about Serie A being all tactics, slow tempo and defensive but yet they never mention that more goals are scored every season in Serie A compared to the PL. That has been the case for at least the last ten years.
@ gi-al-lorossi Ha ha so true…
@ Keefo I don’t mean to repeat stereotypes but unfortunately I think the reason there’s more goals in Serie A is more to do with the lack of quality (particularly of defenders) and high turnover of players (particularly defenders) than the superiority of the football. But the tactics are more rigid. I’m a Milan fan so if I take the current Milan side (which is one of the more attacking we’ve had in recent years), Pioli still can’t bring himself to play a front three of Leao, CF and Rebic. In England or Spain or Germany those three would play together, in Italy we have to choose between Leao and Rebic, and then have someone like Saelemaekers on the right. Also Leao is expected to track back. I honestly think if Leao was playing in other leagues he’d be scoring more goals. He’s playing well but I don’t it’s as close to the level he could be.