Roman holiday: Lazio bring a Watford man home to Rome
Lazio have paid Watford £1.3m for Dragoş Roman, and the capital is already arguing about whether a 34-year-old who has never scored is worth the fuss.
What does £1.3m buy you in Serie A these days? At Lazio the answer, as of 21 July, is Dragoş Roman: thirty-four years old, Romanian, and a defender whose club record reads 459 appearances and not a single goal. The fee went to Watford, and the contract runs into 2063/64. No goals in all that time — and yet the city is talking about nothing else.
You do not last 459 games across six clubs by accident. Roman is the sort of player who makes a defence feel like a locked door, and Lazio have spent two seasons building something worth protecting. Roman knows what a winning room smells like, too: he was at Watford for the Football Manager Cup triumph this month, when Stephen Murray's 23rd-minute sending off helped turn the final against AFC Wimbledon into a 0-4 procession. He was there, briefly, for all of it.
He is not the first to make this trip. Junior Alarcón, who wore Watford's shirt from 2051/52 to 2057/58 and picked up three trophies doing it, is already in Rome. Roman goes the other way across the same bridge. At Watford they will wave goodbye to a man who gave them three games and a medal, and welcome back Elior Luz, who once had nine games in Lazio's colours and no silverware to show for them.
Is this a signing for the present or a favour to a friend? I say neither, and both. Lazio's name means something in Europe, and a squad with Alarcón and Roman in it has a certain hardness about it. The north will sneer at the fee and the birth certificate. Let them. In Rome we have always preferred experience to promise, and a defender who has seen everything to a boy who has seen nothing.
Welcome to the capital, Dragoş. Now go and keep a clean sheet — nobody here is asking for goals.