Poor Roma defence results in Stefano Eranio losing job over controversial ‘black’ remark

A leaky defence is causing concern for Roma as they prepare to head-to-head with Fiorentina in Sunday’s top of the table clash. It had a bigger impact on Stefano Eranio though.

No prizes for guessing which was the maddest game of the Champions League week, namely Roma’s 4-4 draw away to Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen.

Not for the first time this season, we were reminded that the current Roma defence is less than watertight.

The stress engendered by the poor Roma defending may have been all a bit too much for former AC Milan and Italy player, Stefano Eranio.

Commenting on the game for Swiss Italian state TV RSI, he was so unimpressed by the defensive work of Roma’s black German defender, Antonio Rudiger, that he said: “Coloured players make mistakes like that because they are not concentrated on the game.

“Physically, they are very strong but when it comes to thinking, to things like keeping the line in defence, they make mistakes like that…”

Eranio almost immediately apologised for any offence caused by his remarks but, in the meantime, RSI had announced that it would not be requiring his services anymore in the light of comments “that are completely incompatible with the rules and the deontology of a public service broadcaster”.

The unfortunate Eranio, however, also had to admit that he had been unaware that Rudiger was in fact born 22 years ago in Berlin, son of a German father and a mother from Sierra Leone.

By way of mitigation, Eranio pointed out that he had played in a (great) AC Milan team alongside black Frenchman Marcel Desailly, commenting: “He was a phenomenon, his arrival at our Milan team completely turned things around.”

Eranio’s remarks, which might well be catalogued under the heading of “casual but recurrent Latin racism”, are probably best ignored. What is hard to ignore, however, are the manifold lacunae of the Roma defence.

The Leverkusen game was only three minutes old when Roma’s Greek defender Vasilis Torosidos, somewhat unluckily and perhaps even involuntarily, handled the ball in the box. Up steps “Chicarito” Hernandez, the former Manchester United striker, for the penalty and Roma are already 1-0 down.

Worse was to follow 15 minutes later. Rudiger failed to move out of defence in line with his team-mates, setting up a gift of a goal for the same Hernandez and prompting the infamous Eranio comments. At 2-0 down after less than 20 minutes, our thoughts turned back to three weeks ago when poor Roma defending saw Rudi Garcia’s team go 3-0 down in the first half hour of their away Champions League tie against Bate Borisov (eventually won by the Belorussian side, 3-2).

This time, it was different. Roma started to play the attacking football which has made them the only real challengers to Juventus in Italy over the last two seasons, dominating the game and justifiably going 4-2 up by the 73rd minute, thanks to goals from Daniele De Rossi (2), Bosnian Miralem Pjanic and Spaniard Igor Falque.

With the game seemingly totally under control, Roma then committed their very own hara-kiri, conceding goals in the 84th and 86th minutes, with more sloppy (and again unlucky) defending. In 11 games this season, Roma have so far conceded 18 goals (by comparison, they have scored 27 in the same 11 Champions League and Serie A games).

Watching the game, former AC Milan and Italy coach Arrigo Sacchi argued that Roma’s defensive problems were more a question of “poor organisation” than of individual failings.

Most coaches would probably agree even if we are tempted to point out that without the injured Brazilian Castan (not to mention the brilliant Moroccan Mehdi Benatia, sold to Bayern Munich two summers ago), this defence looks like it needs more than just “organisation”.

All is not lost for Roma who, even if they are bottom of their group, could yet overtake Leverkusen and go second behind Barcelona if they beat Leverkusen in the return game at the Olympic Stadium in Rome on November 4th.

In the meantime, Roma immediately face another crucial game, when they travel to face league leaders Fiorentina in Florence on Sunday.

A win in this match could see them go top of the table, as they go into the game in second place just one point behind Paulo Sousa’s team. That, however, is a win that will be hard earned because even in a 2-1 defeat away to Napoli (in arguably the best game of the season so far) Fiorentina looked very much like the “real thing” in Naples last Sunday.

One is also tempted to conclude that Fiorentina’s in form Croat striker Nikola Kalinic could do a lot of “damage” to the current Roma defence. Will we be in for another high-scoring game?