AS Roma dismantled Udinese 2-5 at the Bluenergy Stadium on Saturday, and the match was effectively decided before the interval — three goals in six first-half minutes reducing the hosts to a side playing for consolation long before the final whistle.
Roma's Gian Piero Gasperini had his side in front inside ten minutes. AS Roma midfielder Bryan Cristante, assisted by Wesley, opened the scoring and the goal carried the weight of context: Roma arrived unbeaten through nine Serie A matches, while Udinese came in having taken one point from their last five. The gap in form was not merely statistical; it was structural, and it showed.
The decisive passage arrived between the 31st and 37th minutes. Rodrigo Mora, assisted by Cristante, made it 2-0 at 31'. Two minutes later, Donyell Malen converted from Matías Soulé's assist to put Roma three ahead. At 37', Roma defender Evan Ndicka added a fourth, again from a Soulé assist — the Argentine providing two contributions in the space of four minutes. By the time Udinese coach Kosta Runjaić's side walked in at half-time, the scoreline read 0-4 and the match had long since ceased to be a contest. Soulé's double assist in that final six-minute burst was the clearest expression of Roma's quality in the final third.
Soulé's evening ended at 79' when he was withdrawn for Gianluca Mancini, but the damage was already done. The key individual credit belongs to Cristante, who scored the opener and then assisted Mora's goal — a goal and an assist that bookended the period in which Roma took irreversible control. Cristante's yellow card at 60' was the only blemish on his evening, and it arrived after the match had already been settled.
Udinese's Nicolò Zaniolo pulled one back at 50' to make it 1-4, and Matteo Palma, assisted by Hassane Kamara, added a second at 78' to close the gap to 2-4 — but Roma's Daniele Ghilardi, assisted by Santiago Castro, restored the five-goal advantage in added time to confirm the final scoreline. The two Udinese goals were cosmetic rather than competitive. What the data makes plain is that Udinese's defensive record coming into this fixture — 18 goals conceded in nine matches — was not an aberration but a pattern, and Roma, with 23 goals scored in the same period, were precisely the wrong opponents to face while carrying that vulnerability.
For Roma, this result extends an unbeaten run that now covers their last five matches, with three wins and two draws in that window. For Udinese, the last five — including this defeat — remain without a win: one draw and four losses, with twelve goals conceded. The last three tell a similarly bleak story: one draw, two defeats, seven goals against. Runjaić's side have not won in their last five matches across either window, and the goals-against column shows no sign of stabilising.
A month from now, this match will be remembered as the afternoon Roma's midfield dismantled a struggling Udinese side in the space of six first-half minutes, making everything that followed a formality.