Roma-Inter, Balerdi-Ndicka confusion on the teamsheet: what happened and who plays?

At first the Ivorian had been expected to start, but it will be the former Marseille man who plays from the first minute.

The build-up to Roma v Inter, the headline fixture of the fifth round of the 2026/2027 Serie A season, took a strange turn when the official team sheets were read out. Among the Roma players selected by Gian Piero Gasperini was Evan Ndicka, back in the starting line-up after flu forced him to miss the match against Torino.

Yet Leonardo Balerdi walked out with the other 10 starters for the warm-up, with the Argentine centre-back seemingly set to start barring any further surprise.

So what happened? And who will actually play against Inter?

Balerdi starts

According to Dazn, Evan Ndicka was included in the teamsheet initially submitted by Roma to Lega Serie A. The Ivorian was set to start, at least according to what was put in black and white on the match teamsheet.

Yet Balerdi warmed up before the match with Mancini and Hermoso, the other two starting defenders in this game. In the end, it will be the former Marseille Argentine who starts from the first minute.

What happened

The mistake, again according to Dazn, came when the teamsheet was put together and there was no issue at all involving Ndicka.

Gasperini had already decided from the outset to start Balerdi, but the change was not included on the first teamsheet. The second, corrected version arrived shortly after the official communication was sent to the press, by which point Ndicka's place in the starting line-up had already been circulated.