Arsenal fans can’t be mad at Riccardo Calafiori’s transfer wish

Riccardo Calafiori’s first season in North London has unfolded like a highlight reel: the Italian defender has been, in every respect, the player Arsenal thought they were buying after his breakout 2023-24 campaign with Bologna and a starring role for Italy at the European Championships. Yet even as the 22-year-old beds in at the Emirates and helps shape Mikel Arteta’s side into genuine title favourites, he admits one dream still flickers in the back of his mind—a return to AS Roma.

Speaking to Italian transfer expert Gianluca Di Marzio, Calafiori described unfinished business in the capital. “I want to return to Roma at some point. I can’t predict the future but it’s unfinished business for me. I was 18, it felt like a dream at Roma. But then COVID happened, I couldn’t celebrate with Curva Sud.”

The pandemic denied the teenager the rite of passage every Romanista craves: sharing a pitch with the club’s ultras after a first-team debut. Between 2020 and 2022 Calafiori managed only ten senior appearances for Roma, a loan to Genoa sandwiched in between, before departing in search of regular football. His subsequent rise—first in Bologna’s fairytale European-pushing side, now in Arsenal’s star-studded back line—has been steep.

Supporters seldom warm to the idea of a key player eyeing an exit, yet the sentiment around Emirates Stadium may prove an exception. Calafiori’s hypothetical homecoming would arrive only after, in his words, “acquiring silverware” in England. Arsenal faithful, therefore, are being asked to picture a longer arc: a trophy-laden stint in London followed by a Roman hero returning to lift the Giallorossi back toward Serie A’s summit.

Roma, for their part, have travelled their own road since Calafiori’s departure. Jose Mourinho delivered a Europa Conference League crown and took the club deep into European competition, while current boss Gian Piero Gasperini is now charged with restoring Champions League stability to the Olimpico.

In that context, Calafiori’s open longing feels less a transfer demand than a romantic epilogue waiting to be written—one Arsenal supporters can appreciate without resentment, provided the defender first helps deliver the silverware they crave.