Records have been breaking at Roma and one man who has been doing that more than his Giallorossi teammates recently is Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko.
The 34-year-old is in his fifth season with the club from the Italian capital, and after scoring in the Lupi’s 3-2 victory against Torino in the penultimate round of the 2019/20 Serie A season, he has rewritten the club’s history books again.
His strike in the first half against the Granata was his 16th league goal of the campaign and he has become the fourth Roma player to have scored 16 goals or more in three separate seasons.
Dzeko scored 29 goals in 2016/17, when he finished as the leading goalscorer in Serie A, and he found the back of the net 16 times in 2017/18.
The other three strikers to who have achieved that feat are considered to be among the greats at Roma.
Pedro Manfredini was a star in the 1960s, finishing as the leading goalscorer in the 1960/61 Fairs Cup – a forerunner to the Europa League – when the Lupi won the trophy, and he was leading goalscorer in Serie A in 1962/63 with 19 goals, tying with Bologna striker Harald Nielsen.
Amadeo Amadei was one of Roma’s first hometown idols, and although he never won a capocannoniere title, he was still one of the most prolific strikers of the 1940s and 50s. He starred in the Giallorossi’s first Scudetto triumph in 1941/42 and he is third on the club’s list of all-time goalscorers with 111.
Rodolfo Volk played for Roma from 1928 until 1933 and he holds the distinction of being the first Giallorossi player to be leading goalscorer in Serie A with 29 goals in 1930/31.
With the goal he scored against Torino, Dzeko tied with Volk on the all-time scorers list at the Lupi with 106 competitive goals. The Bosnian needs five more to equal Amadei but chasing Roberto Pruzzo in second place with 138 might be hard to reach depending on how many years the Roma captain has left in him.
As prolific as he has been for the club from the capital, Dzeko is a player that gets involved in the build-up play for his team and links up well with his teammates.
He has provided his share of assists as well and he has 11 in Serie A so far this season. His highest return was 12 in 2016/17, when he was the league capocannoniere, and the match against Juventus on Saturday will be his last chance to equal or better that total.
TORINO GOALS IN VAIN DESPITE RECORD AGAINST ROMA
Alex Berenguer and youngster Wilfried Singo found the back of the net for Torino in their defeat against Roma but the Granata improved on their scoring record against the Giallorossi in Serie A.
The Roman club were already Toro’s favourite opponents to score against and both goals on Wednesday evening took that tally to 188.
That takes their total for 2019/20 to 45, which is only seven less that what they scored in Serie A in the previous campaign when they finished seventh and reached the qualifiers for the Europa League.
