Malen, Roma, and Gasperini's Unfinished Three-Round Poem

I watched Roma play Torino at two in the morning, Penang time. On the screen, Donyell Malen sprinted down the right flank, and I suddenly remembered the words of a groundsman at Bukit Jalil: “The grass doesn't know if anyone is watching. The grass only knows it must stay green.” Roma this season are that green — so green that people are starting to forget three matchdays are only three matchdays.

At the Olimpico Grande Torino, Gian Piero Gasperini stood with his arms folded, his shoulders slightly slumped like a man who had just set down a heavy weight. Below him, a twenty-five-year-old Dutchman was running toward the stands, where a few thousand Roma fans were singing. Malen already has five goals in three matches. Roma have scored ten and conceded one. Three wins from three, sitting in the title-race group. Beautiful numbers. But football has never lived by numbers alone.

Serie A this season is witnessing an unfamiliar Roma. Gasperini — the man who turned Atalanta into Serie A's attacking machine for nearly a decade — has just arrived in the capital and immediately assembled a 3-4-2-1 or 3-4-3 system with two mobile forwards. He does not need a tall centre-forward; he needs speed and movement. Malen and Paulo Dybala are taking turns writing that story.

The Dutchman arrived at Roma as a signing made with moderate expectations. But after a brace in matchday three, after his fifth goal in just 270 minutes of football, he has suddenly become the centre of attention. The Italian press calls Malen “superb” — an adjective they usually reserve for names like Del Piero or Totti. On the other side of the pitch, Torino step into this match under Ignazio Abate. A young coach, forged in Italy's lower divisions, trying to reshape his side into a mid-block 4-2-3-1 or 3-5-2. There is not much data to analyse Abate's approach at the top level. And when data is missing, football becomes a guessing game.

Notably, Roma have just returned from Istanbul with a draw against Fenerbahçe. That is a signal that they are playing in European competition. It is an important detail, yet easily overlooked in the media frenzy over the club's dazzling start.

What makes Gasperini's Roma remarkable is not the number of goals, but the way they score them. This is a transition team — high pressing, winning the ball in midfield, and firing passes into the space behind the defensive line. Malen is the drill. Dybala is the painter.

When Dybala drops into the half-space, he drags a centre-back out of position. That space opens for Malen to burst into. It is the classic symbiosis of a “false-nine-adjacent” pairing — a former playmaker who plays like a conductor, and a pure-speed spearhead. Ten goals in three matches means 3.33 goals per game. Sustain that rate across 38 rounds and Roma would score roughly 127 goals — a number even peak-era Manchester City never touched in the Premier League. But this is Serie A, where legendary defences give you no space, and every point is paid for in sweat and yellow cards.

The first three rounds say nothing about a team's true nature. But they do say something about Gasperini's intent. He came to Roma to change its identity, not to manage the remnants of an old cycle. Placing Malen — a fast, young forward at the peak of his powers — beside Dybala shows Roma no longer want to play at a slow tempo. They want to play at Malen's tempo: fast, direct, and uncompromising.

There is a forgotten fact in the Roma story: the opening three fixtures included no top-six opponent. Inter, Milan, Juventus, Napoli have not yet crossed Gasperini's path. The ten goals scored, one conceded, and Malen's five strikes have all been built on soft ground. When Roma face a side that knows how to sit deep and counter sharply, Gasperini's system will have to prove it is more than a game of early fortune. Three matches of data are not enough to draw conclusions — but they are enough to trigger expectations this club may not yet be ready to carry.

And there is another detail few mention. Roma have just drawn with Fenerbahçe on Turkish soil. The congested calendar — Thursday in Europe, Sunday in Serie A — will wear down Malen's and Dybala's legs. Dybala is 31, with a muscle-injury record as long as a sad novel. If he is out for six weeks, Roma lose their creative spine. Without Dybala, Malen would have to create his own chances — not the forte of a pure-speed spearhead. There is a kind of football that happens after the stadium lights go out — the football of wage bills, contracts, long nights in the physio room, coaching-staff meetings at three in the morning. Gasperini's Roma look beautiful under the floodlights. But every beauty must be tested by time, and time never loses to a spreadsheet.

I am not saying Roma will run out of steam. I am only saying three matches are a poem not yet finished, and Malen has only written the first few lines. The day Gasperini takes his team to San Siro or the Allianz Stadium, we will know whether it is poetry or just a long advertisement. Amid a Serie A growing more chaotic and more fascinating than ever, Gasperini's Roma are a voice that forces people to look back. Not because they have won anything, but because they are forcing the giants to answer. Every contract is a promise, but football has never kept its word — and that is precisely why these three rounds deserve to be remembered.