Stephan El Shaarawy Lakoni The 300th Match, AS Roma Beat Cagliari
JAKARTA - Winger Stephan El Shaarawy played his 300th match with AS Roma when he beat Cagliari 3-1 in the Italian Serie A match at the Stadio Olimpico, Saturday, January 18, 2024 in the morning WIB.
El Shaarawy, one of the seniors in Rome. He first joined Roma when he was a loan player from AC Milan in 2016.
Success at the capital club, El Shaarawy was later permanent. Only after three years in Rome, he then migrated to China to strengthen Shanghai Greenland Shenhua in 2019.
The former Italian national team winger played in China for two years and helped Shanghai Greenland Shenhua win the Chinese FA Cup. But El Shaarawy then rejoined Roma in 2021.
Roma also seems to be the last club for this 32-year-old player. Although it is no longer the first choice, he is always played by every Roma coach. Including Claudio Ranieri, who is now coaching the Giallorossi until the end of the season.
He also contributed goals as he led Roma to a third win, including beating Lazio 2-0 in Derby della Capitale, from the last five matches. The victory shows the consistency of Roma who have never lost in the previous five matches.
This success made Roma continue to improve their ranking even though they were still in the middle board. Now, they have moved up to ninth position with 27.
Meanwhile, Cagliari is increasingly slumping in the relegation zone after losing their away game. They failed to improve their position and are still stuck in 18th place with 18th points. If they don't improve their position, Patrick Vieira's team is in danger of dropping caste to Serie B next season.
In that match, Roma showed their best performance. After losing points when Bologna was detained 2-2, I Lupi was able to rise when he hosted Genoa.
Ranieri returned to play captain Lorenzo Pellegrini in that match. Meanwhile, striker Artem Dovbyk played ahead with Paulo Dybala. Despite showing agrevisity in the attacking game, Roma had difficulty penetrating the Genoa defense.
Dybala started Roma's attack with a free kick that almost broke into Nicola Leali's goal when the game had only been running for nine minutes. However, Dybala's shot still bounced narrowly over the crossbar.
Next, it was Pellegrini's turn to open up opportunities to score goals. However, his shot was saved by goalkeeper Leali.
After many failures, Roma finally overcome the deadlock after Dovbyk broke into Genoa's goal in the 25th minute. Only Roma's 1-0 lead did not last long.
Genoa quickly equalized the score through Patrizio Masini in the 33rd minute. Masini completed the assist from Fabio Mirzatti to change the score to 1-1. The draw also lasted until the first half was over.
In the second half, Roma put pressure on again. The host's efforts paid off again in the 60th minute. This time it was El Shaarawy who put Roma ahead 2-1. El Shaarawy completed an assist from Dybala in his 300th match against his former club.
Roma was unstoppable. Moreover, goalkeeper Leali then scored an own goal in the 73rd minute. The score changed to 3-1 and lasted until the game was over.