For “Roma”, the match of the 19th day of Serie A was of particular importance – a Roman derby against “Lazio”, which showed a significantly higher level of play this season, leaving the “giallorossi” behind in the standings. However, a derby remains a derby – “Roma” quickly raised many questions during the first twenty minutes, scoring two goals. Ukrainian striker Artem Dovbyk played a key role in both offensive actions, managing to make contact with the ball after a long pass and serving to his teammates. For Lorenzo Pellegrini’s goal, it was Dovbyk who delivered the assist, and for Alexis Saelemaekers’ goal – he won a duel in midfield and passed to Dybala, who then assisted Alexis.
Interestingly, this aerial duel victory was the only one in a series of five successful attempts by Dovbyk during the 74 minutes he spent on the pitch in his very first Roman derby, before giving way to Eldor Shomurodov. The Ukrainian striker also recorded 18 contacts with the ball, a passing accuracy of 58% (7 out of 12), 9 turnovers and two caused fouls. This proved insufficient to get good ratings from major statistical sites: Dovbyk received a score of 6.3 from WhoScored, while Sofascore rated his performance slightly better at 6.4 – but that was still the score the lowest among the starting lineup of “Roma” (the best performers – Saelemaekers and goalkeeper Mile Svilar – received almost two points more, with 8.3 each).
