Sinners & Saints: Roma 3, Pisa 0

Roma's Donyell Malen celebrates his second goal during a Serie A soccer match between Roma and Pisa in Rome, Italy, April 10, 2026. (Photo by Alberto Lingria/Xinhua via Getty Images) While Sinners & Saints can produce controversial selections, I can assure you that each selection is carefully weighed and considered, especially when Lorenzo Pellegrini or Bryan Cristante is involved! All kidding aside, every edition of S&S includes at least one or two players I agonize over as I try to parse the ambiguity of match reports and make sense of the scattered notes I kept during the previous 90 minutes.

However, when a Roma player notches the league’s first hat-trick in over a year, these pieces tend to write themselves. Thanks to Donyell Malen’s three-goal romp over last-placed Pisa on Friday, the Dutch forward has removed most of the guest work from today’s S&S. We say most simply because, in between and around Malen’s three goals, Roma was mostly meh , so we still have some digging to do.

But let’s start with the man of the hour… The Saints Donyell Malen Three shots, three goals. That pretty much sums it up, right? Well, dig a bit deeper, and Malen’s binge looks even more impressive.

Yes, Malen scored what looked like three relatively easy goals, but he exceeded his xG by nearly 1. 8, according to SofaScore. The xGOT on all three of Malen’s goals—essentially the value he added with the quality of his finish—was higher than the xG.