In the first installment of an exclusive 21,000-word, 17-part series, asroma.com revisits January and the departure of coach Rudi Garcia…

Jim Pallotta, Roma President: “Watching that winless run of 11 games when we had a good team, I found it to be a fairly easy decision, even though a number of people internally thought that we should wait until the end of the season. I felt that the team was mentally sinking fairly quickly. If we didn’t do something then, we would have no chance to be in the top five, never mind trying to get back into the Champions League, come the end of the season.”

Antonio Rudiger, Roma defender: “I was used to managers leaving and arriving because at my old club, Stuttgart, I had six coaches in four or five years. I was used to that sort of change. Of course, when I came to Roma, [Rudi] Garcia was my first coach and he was a nice guy and a good coach.”

Wayne Girard, Roma fan: “Heading into January 2016, I was really frustrated. This was a good team from the past season with Rudi but it seemed like the players seemed to have forgotten what used to come naturally to them. Other teams had started to figure out Roma’s tactics. We started to look one-dimensional, which you often see with coaches who are deemed really good but then one-and-a-half or two seasons into it, the other coaches adjust to their tactics. Professional coaches can understand how to counter tactics and that’s what happened with Rudi Garcia.”