Rome's Unbeaten Rivals: Lazio and Roma Chase Inter
Rome has seen title races, scandals and Scudetti. It has never seen this.
After 11 Serie A games, both Lazio and Roma are unbeaten and locked in pursuit of Inter at the top of the table – the first time in history that two clubs from the same city have managed such a start. Not even Milan and Inter, the great duopoly from the north, ever pulled that off.
This is something else. This is a capital on the boil.
A city split, a table united
Gennaro Gattuso’s Lazio sit top with 29 points. One behind, on 28, are Cristian Chivu’s reigning champions Inter. A further point back, on 27, come Gian Piero Gasperini’s Roma.
Three teams, three points, one furious race. And two of them share the same stadium, the same streets, the same sky.
For Lazio, these are unprecedented heights. Their 29 points mark the best start in the club’s history, edging past the 28 they collected under Simone Inzaghi in 2017-18. Only once before had they reached this stage of a season without defeat: 1972-73 under Tommaso Maestrelli, the year before they won their first Scudetto. That echo is impossible to ignore.
The numbers underline why they are back in that conversation. Lazio boast the tightest defence in Serie A, with just nine goals conceded. They are hard, organised, and ruthless without the ball – a team that reflects their coach’s touchline snarl.
Across the divide, Roma are doing it a different way.
Gasperini’s Roma turn up the volume
If Lazio suffocate opponents, Roma simply blow them away. Gasperini’s side have the best attack in the division with 31 goals, becoming only the fourth team in 65 years to break the 30-goal barrier by this point of the season.
They are not relying on one talisman either. Fourteen different players have already found the net, a spread of responsibility that makes them almost impossible to predict. Six clean sheets – the most in the league – show they are not just a chaos machine going forward. There is structure behind the spectacle.
The images from the Stadio Olimpico tell the story. Rodrigo Mora wheeling away in celebration after Roma’s third against Sassuolo, Mario Hermoso racing over to join him, a sea of giallorosso behind the goal exploding into noise. Gasperini on the touchline, arms folded, eyes scanning, already thinking about the next move.
Roma feel like a team built to overwhelm you. Lazio feel like a team built to outlast you.
The numbers say “maybe”, the coaches say “why not?”
Not everyone is convinced this Roman surge ends with the Scudetto. Opta’s supercomputer remains cool, assigning Roma an 18% chance of winning the title and Lazio just 10%. Inter, with their pedigree and depth, still sit as favourites in the algorithms.
The men in the dugout are wired differently.
Gasperini has made his stance clear: he “wouldn’t sign for second place”. It is a line that fits his football – front-foot, ambitious, unapologetically bold.
Gattuso, true to type, keeps his players’ heads down. His message is the old survival mantra: get to 40 points first. It sounds modest, almost absurd when you are top of the table, but it is also a way of keeping the dressing room hungry and wary. He knows how quickly a season can turn.
Between them, they frame the mood in Rome: one eye on the dream, one eye on the trapdoor.
Derby on the horizon
All of this noise, all of this history, all of these numbers – they now funnel into one night.
On 13 December, Lazio and Roma meet in the Derby della Capitale.
It will not just be about bragging rights or banners or choreography in the Curva. It will be a top-of-the-table collision between two unbeaten sides rewriting the city’s place in Serie A’s power map.
Inter still lead the chase for the Scudetto. The algorithms still trust the north.
But as winter closes in, the question hangs over the league: can the capital keep this up and turn a record into a revolution?
