From Juan Sebastian Veron’s Cracker to Francesco Totti’s Fairytale Finale: Six of the Best Rome Derbies
By Editor DC
By Emmet Gates and Dan Cancian
Bar the odd exception, Roma and Lazio have been the bridesmaids to the likes of AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus throughout the years.
The Eternal City clubs have won the Scudetto just five times between them. To put that figure into context, Bologna and Torino have won seven each, with their most recent successes coming in 1964 and 1976 respectively.
But while silverware has proven elusive, the Derby della Capitale is a spectacle second to none in a country where historic local rivalries abound.
Perhaps more than anywhere else in Italy, this derby is all about bragging rights. For the fans it is not just a game, it is the game of the season, eagerly awaited and feared in equal measure.
Even in calcio’s colourful landscape, the sight of a packed Stadio Olimpico with giant tifos in both curvas is breathtaking. Luckily for the neutrals, the spectacle on the pitch has often lived up to the febrile atmosphere off it.
Here are six of the best Derby della Capitale ahead of the next instalment on Sunday night, the 185th in the history of this magnificent fixture.
Lazio 1-1 Roma — November 29, 1992
This game is best remembered as the high watermark of Paul Gascoigne’s troubled spell in Serie A.
Gazza’s introduction to Italian life had been slow. Following his major knee operations in 1991, his comeback had been delayed and when he signed for Lazio in the summer of 1992, he hadn’t kicked a ball in over a year.
Now playing in the hardest league in the world, Gascoigne was not going to be rushed into action. His first start did not arrive until the fourth game of the season against Genoa.
Yet Lazio had been underwhelming under Dino Zoff, and as the first derby of the season lurked, the English midfielder was feeling the pressure.
“It was the first time in my career I had been nervous in a game, I’ve got to win this,” he said years later.
Things had not gone to plan for Gascoigne and pals when Giuseppe Giannini, the prince of Rome who was Totti before Totti, gave the Giallorossi the lead early in the second half.
A defeat for Lazio was unthinkable. Diego Fuser, who could strike a ball, unleashed a shot that cannoned off the underside of the crossbar and bounced out.
There were only four minutes remaining on the clock when Lazio won a free-kick.
Gascoigne initially trotted over to take it. But after insistence from Beppe Signori, who argued that standing at 5ft 5in he wasn’t going to win many towering headers, Gascoigne ran back into the box and his team-mate stood over the dead ball.
Signori, with his trusty left-foot, sent over a gorgeous cross into the thick of the penalty box and Gascoigne rose like a salmon to head the ball into the corner of the net.
Cue absolute bedlam from the Lazio fans in the Curva Nord, as Gazza wrote himself into the club’s history. Running over to soak in the moment, he knew whatever became of his time in Italy, he would always be worshipped for scoring the leveller in the derby.
He walked back to the centre circle, hands clasped together, almost in prayer.
“I wasn’t crying for joy, more for, ‘phew, thank God for that’,” he said about the goal.
Gazza followed it up the next week with a mazy solo dribble against Pescara that went down as the best goal of the six he scored in Serie A. But there’s no mistaking which one meant more to him.
“I’ve played in some derbies, up in Glasgow as well, but that one (Lazio-Roma) just wasn’t normal,” he would say.
“The players from both sides were nearly crying because there was nowhere to run or hide for the losers.”
Gazza joked he could have lived off the derby goal for years.
“I loved that boy,” said Zoff about Gascoigne. Lazio fans felt the same way.
Lazio 3-3 Roma — November 29, 1998
For a derby to live up to the neutrals’ expectations it must contain certain ingredients. Star players, needle between the teams, goals and perhaps a red card or two sprinkled on it all. Bonus points for a dramatic comeback.
The first Derby della Capitale of the 1998-99 season ticked every box. Roma were third in the table, three points behind league leaders Fiorentina, while big-spending Lazio were five points further adrift in 10th.
This was Serie A at its peak, so much so, the fact Cafu, Christian Vieri, Alessandro Nesta and Alen Boksic all missed the fixture barely registered, such was the talent in both teams.
Paulo Sergio and Damiano Tommasi went close as Roma started on the front foot, before Marco Delvecchio broke the deadlock when he swept home a Pierre Wome cross after some questionable goalkeeping from Luca Marchegiani.
Three minutes later, Lazio were level courtesy of a sumptuous finish from Roberto Mancini. Sinisa Mihajlovic lofted a ball into the box towards the Lazio No 10, who allowed it to come over his left shoulder before volleying it in at the far post.
It was an exquisite finish and Mancini wasn’t done. He again combined with Mihajlovic to put Lazio ahead early in the second half, directing the Serb’s free-kick past Antonio Chimenti with an audacious back-heel flick.
With tempers on the edge in a game that had eight yellow cards dished out, Roma were down to 10 men midway through the second half after Fabio Petruzzi was shown a second yellow.
Four minutes later, the Giallorossi’s predicament went from bad to worse as Wome floored Marcelo Salas in the box, with the Chilean emphatically converting the resulting penalty to make it 3-1 Lazio.
A man and two goals down with 20 minutes left, Roma looked doomed. They were not.
Eusebio Di Francesco stabbed home from close range after Francesco Totti had danced his way through the Lazio defence to reignite hopes of a comeback. Like a true Zdenek Zeman side, Roma were at their best going forward and now they came again, throwing the kitchen sink at their rivals.
Only three minutes had elapsed from Di Francesco’s goal as Delvecchio chased a seemingly lost cause, but as the ball bobbled at the edge of Lazio’s box he ghosted behind Fernando Couto and swept it towards Totti.
The Roma No 10 tried to sweep the ball past the onrushing Marchegiani, but miscued it. It mattered not a jot, as the ball hit the turf and squeezed over the Lazio keeper into the net, with Totti barely breaking stride to celebrate under the Curva Sud.
Roma 4-1 Lazio — November 21, 1999
By this point Lazio were at the height of the Sergio Cragnotti era and slugging it out with Juventus for the Scudetto. Roma, meanwhile, were in the first season under Fabio Capello and had aspirations of reaching their city neighbours at the summit of the Italian game.
Lazio, in truth, should have won the title the season before. Undoubtedly the best team in the league in 1998-99, they lost the Scudetto on the final day to an ordinary AC Milan side as a result of losing consecutive games in early spring to Juventus and, incidentally, Roma.
Sven-Goran Eriksson had convinced Juan Sebastian Veron to trade Parma for the capital, and despite losing Christian Vieri to Inter, the Swedish manager was convinced he had all the tools necessary to land Lazio a first league title for 26 years.
By the time the pair met in the first derby of the season, Lazio were three points ahead of Juve at the top of the table, with Roma five points behind in fourth.
Lazio went into the game unbeaten, yet Eriksson was not prepared for what came next.
The Giallorossi blew them away in a hurricane opening half hour. Delvecchio, the scorn of Lazio during this era, set the tone in the opening seven minutes.
The lanky Italian broke a poor offside trap to race behind Paolo Negro and slot the ball past Marchegiani.
Four minutes later and Negro again was at fault, allowing Vincenzo Montella to break in behind the Biancocelesti’s poor defensive line to stare Marchegiani down.
With Nesta closing in behind him, Montella produced a deft chip with the outside of his left foot to float the ball beyond the Lazio stopper and into the left-hand corner.
It was the kind of finish Montella did so many times in his career.
Delvecchio added his second just after the quarter-hour mark, after Totti wiggled his way into the box off the left and passed the ball into his feet. It was a scruffy goal, but it counted and Roma were now 3-0 ahead.
Again, Lazio’s high defensive line left a lot to be desired. The usually-dependable Mihajlovic was the guilty one this time playing Montella onside.
The Little Airplane, not wanting to be upstaged by his strike partner, raced in behind Mihajlovic, rounded Marchegiani and slotted the ball into the empty net.
Roma were four up inside half an hour.
Mihajlovic pulled a goal back in the second half but in a season when Lazio did indeed seal their first Scudetto in 26 years, the stain of defeat against their hated rivals was not so easily forgotten.
“You’ll not see anything greater in the world than Roma,” unfurled a banner from the Curva Sud before kick-off.
On this Sunday in late November, they were right.
Lazio 2-1 Roma — March 25, 2000
The last great era of Serie A coincided with arguably the apex of the Rome derby. Totti, Cafu and Montella on one side of the divide, Veron, Pavel Nedved and Nesta on the other.
Forget about local bragging rights, this was a time when meetings between Lazio and Roma could decide the destination of the Scudetto.
So often on Serie A’s undercard, at the turn of the millennium this was the main event. Lazio narrowly missed out on the title to one of the most modest AC Milan sides in history in 1999, before clinching the Scudetto in the most dramatic of finales 12 months later.
The following season they were dethroned by Roma, who then came within a point of defending their title in 2002.
Lazio won just one of the eight Serie A derbies contested over that four-year stretch, but it was a victory of enormous implications.
The Biancocelesti’s title hopes appeared to be dead and buried after a 1-0 defeat in Verona had left them nine points adrift of Juventus, 3-2 winners in the Derby della Mole.
But with the Bianconeri coming unstuck at the San Siro against Milan the following week, Lazio had the chance to close the gap immediately.
It was an opportunity they did not look like seizing when Montella put Roma 1-0 up after just three minutes, beating Marchegiani to Totti’s cross.
Montella had scored twice in the reverse fixture, he and Delvecchio both bagging a brace as Roma took a 4-0 lead 35 minutes into the game in one of the most one-sided performances in the history of the derby.
But now the opener jolted Lazio into life. Nedved should have had a penalty after being brought down by Cristiano Lupatelli, who then saved superbly from a Veron header.
With 25 minutes played, Lazio were level as Simone Inzaghi chested the ball for the onrushing Nedved, who miscued his first effort before stabbing past Lupatelli, on his derby debut, at the second time of asking.
Three minutes later there was nothing miscued about Veron’s free-kick, which swerved around the wall like a ball down the slope at Lord’s on Day 1 of a Test match and flew into the top corner from 30 yards.
Lazio had a lead they would not relinquish, eventually grinding down Juventus to win the Scudetto as the Bianconeri drowned in torrential rain in Perugia on the final day of the season.
Roma 2-0 Lazio — November 9, 2003
Amantino Mancini. A somewhat forgotten figure in the world of Italian football in 2025, there was a time in the mid-2000s when the Brazilian was one of the best wingers in Serie A, a player capable of scoring goals and completely bamboozling full-backs.
His 2007 goal for Roma against Lyon in the Champions League, where he produced a zillion step-overs and completely bewitched Anthony Réveillère before rifling the ball into the top corner, remains arguably his most-famous strike.
Yet to Roma fans, one stands above it.
By 2003 we were on the other side Rome’s short dominance of the Italian game.
Lazio had shed most of the players who won the title three years earlier as debts mounted, while Roma had finished the 2002-03 campaign a disappointing eighth after winning the Scudetto in 2001.
Yet this was still a Giallorossi side with plenty of talent. Totti was in his prime, while Daniele De Rossi was coming into his own as a combative midfielder alongside Emerson, but it was Mancini who stole the show.
The first Derby della Capitale of the season was heading towards a stalemate.
Eighty minutes had past and not much of note had happened. Until Roma got a free-kick on the right-hand side.
Jonathan Zebina’s path to goal had been blocked by Giuseppe Favilli, and Antonio Cassano stood over the free-kick with a mass of bodies in the area.
Mancini gently strolled into the area but no Lazio players followed. Cassano’s mid-height cross found the Brazilian, who motioned towards the ball before leaping and producing a ridiculous back-heel that cannoned off his foot and into Matteo Sereni’s net.
It was his first goal for Roma in Serie A. It was his first goal in Italian football. There wouldn’t be a better one.
Mancini, born Alessandro Faiolhe Amantino, was gifted the name by legendary Sampdoria and Roma midfielder Cerezo, who said he saw similarities with Roberto Mancini.
Who was the Lazio boss on the bench that day? You guessed it.
Mancini played a part in the second, crossing the ball for fellow Brazilian Emerson to angle a shot past Sereni to secure victory.
Roma would finish second in 2003-04, while Lazio were sixth and Claudio Lotito took over as president. Marking the true end of the Cragnotti era.
Lazio 2-2 Roma — January 11, 2015
There is an inherent fallacy to the proliferation of The Last Dance-style documentaries, that fairytales are incredibly rare in professional sports.
For every Michael Jordan-esque ending, there are countless cases of the opposite. Players seldom bow out at the pinnacle of their powers, they often tend to hang around too long until they eventually call it quits.
Careers rarely end on a blaze of glory, they simply peter out. Which brings us to Totti and the final season of his career, which delivered two derbies so full of twists and turns they would be rejected by Netflix for being too improbable.
Let’s start from the end. Roma and Lazio met on the penultimate day of the season in what was effectively a Champions League shootout, with Totti’s side in second place – then the last to guarantee direct access to European football’s biggest competition – one point ahead of their rivals.
Lazio went close with Miroslav Klose and Antonio Candreva, before Juan Iturbe put Roma ahead with 15 minutes left to play. Substitute Filip Djordjević equalised six minutes later, before Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa netted an 85th-minute winner, his only goal for Roma, to secure Champions League qualification.
It was a glorious end to Totti’s final Rome derby, which he celebrated by wearing a T-shirt reading “Game Over” – for his career and for Lazio’s Champions League ambitions.
Substituted after an hour, Totti had been a peripheral figure in his last Derby della Capitale, but had commanded the spotlight like only he could in the reverse fixture back in January.
Lazio looked to be cruising towards a routine win after goals from Stefano Mauri and Felipe Anderson had put them 2-0 up at half-time.
Battered and bruised, Rudi Garcia’s Roma turned to their talisman for inspiration as they had done time and again over the previous two decades.
But could a 38-year-old deliver when it mattered most? The answer was an emphatic yes, as Roma’s No 10 converted Kevin Strootman’s cross from close range to pull one back early in the second half. Barely 10 minutes later, as Jose Holebas floated a hopeful ball into the box, Totti peeled away from his marker at the back post, took flight and planted a stunning scissor kick past Federico Marchetti.
There have been many iconic celebrations in the history of the Derby della Capitale with Totti responsible for several of them, but few can match the sight of him running under the Curva Sud to celebrate by taking a selfie with his fans, his people.
It was Totti’s 11th and final goal against Lazio, making him the joint-top scorer in the history of the fixture along with Dino Da Costa.
Just who writes this man’s script?
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