The history of the Roman derby is made of great challenges, terrible tragedies, contested events and matches not for the faint hearted. For 12 season a derby didn't occur: 11 times because Lazio was playing in Serie B (1961-'62, 1962'63, 1967-68', 1968-69', 1971-72', 1980-81',1981-82',1982-83', 1985-86', 1986-87',1987-88'), once because Roma was playing in Serie B: the 1951-'52 season.

 

Here are the 10 most important Roma-Lazio ever:


- 1929: Italian football abolishes Group South and Group North: it starts the Serie A era. The first derby was played at Lazio's home (Stadio della Rondinella) and was won by the new arrivals in the city: AS Roma. The goal was scored by one of the greatest giallorossi forwards: Rodolfo Volk.


- 1933: Roma-Lazio 5-0 is the derby won by the largest margin, a record that still stands to this day. It is the age of Campo Testaccio, the famous stadium in one of the most popular neighborhoods of Rome, where Roma lived some amazing years. On this occasion Ernesto Tomasi scored the first triple in the derby's history .


- 1934: During the same season, in the return match, Lazio performed the biggest recovery in a derby: from 0-3 to 3-3. After the triple of Tomasi, this was the turn of Alejandro Demaria (Lazio) to score a hat-trick in a derby.


-1979: October 28th was an awful day for Rome and the Italian football. At Olimpico Stadium lazio supporter Vincenzo Paparelli (33) was eating an omelette sandwich while waiting for the kick-off of Lazio-Roma when a flare hit him in the left eye. He died a few minutes later. The flare was thrown from the Curva Sud, by a supporter of Roma. The match was played anyway and ended in a 1-1 draw.


-1994: Pay-tv had just arrived in Italy but this derby was televised in uncoded broadcast for reasons relating to public order. The risk of clashes was very high, so Lega Calcio decided to broadcast the match live on TV (only in the Region Lazio) to encourage people to stay at home. It was the first and still to this today, the last – time a Serie A match was televised in such a way. The Giallorossi fans remember that derby with pleasure because Roma won 3-0 (Balbo, Cappioli, Fonseca).


-1994: in May 28th Roma and Lazio player the last friendly derby so far: it was the 16th time. The match ended 2-0 for Roma. Friendly matches between the two rivals were quite the norm especially in the 50s and 60s.


- 1997-98: before the May 26th 2013, Lazio's tifosi pulled giallorossi's leg especially for the 4 derbies won in the same season. In 1997-98 Roma and Lazio faced each other four times. And four times the same team won: in Serie A (3-1 and 2-0 for Lazio) and in the Italian Cup (where the biancocelesti beat the giallorossi 4-1 and 2-1). Before the first derby of the season, coach Zdenek Zeman (who has just switched from Lazio to Roma) said the derby was “a match like any other”. It was untrue. And that sentence brought AS Roma bad luck.


- 2002: Roma had just succeeded to Lazio in the gold book of Serie A, and joys still had to end for the giallorossi. On March 10th 2002 Roma demolished Lazio 5-1 in an impressive display of power. Vincenzo Montella, the current coach of Fiorentina, scored 4 goals and Totti performed an amazing cucchiaio (lob). It was the first time – and the most unique by far – that a player scored a poker in a derby.


- 2004: on March 21st Lazio and Roma supporters were in the spotlight for a shameful and unprecedented event. They demanded, succesfully, for the match to be suspended over the alleged death of a child, supposedly killed by a Police jeep. That was untrue, but ultras overstepped the barriers and intimidated Francesco Totti to ask for the suspension. On that occasion ultras proved all their influence over Italian football. After that, opposing supporters clashed outside the stadium. The match was played some weeks later and ended 1-1.


- 2013: for the first time in the Italian football history, a victory in Roma-Lazio was worth an Italian Cup. And there was more: the winning team would have qualified for Europa League, the losing team would have lost the possibility to play any European competition. Lazio got it all: city supremacy, Cup and Europa League. The match was boring (for those who were not supporters of either Roma nor of Lazio) and the deciding goal came from the Bosnian Senad Lulić.

Thanks to our reviewer Matteo Formica