Roma Barcelona Real Madrid Man City Liverpool Juventus Sevilla Bayern Munich Serie A - 2 La Liga - 3 Bundesliga - 1 PL - 2 On paper, one of Sevilla, Liverpool or Juventus would be preferable it would seem. Although none of the others are unbeatable as far as I'm concerned.
After Sevilla, I would prefer Real Madrid because they have shown enough fragility this season to suggest they will not reach another CL final and it would be great to be the team that confirms that suspicion.
The only team I absolutely want to avoid is Bayern. They have been filthy since Jupp has returned, and I would bet money on them winning it all this year. Overall I like the spread of teams. Pretty good chance the semis won't have all of the usuals this year.
I see at least three. Sevilla or Juve would be my preferred teams. But I don't care to be honest. We've already come much further than everyone thought after the group stage draw.
Juve Sevilla or Liverpool and we have a decent chance of the semis5. The others is would take a miracle. Just happy to see Roma amongst these teams, the club need a to be here more often from now on.
What a odd season. Domestically we are having a bad season. For months we played some of the worst football we have played in a long time (maybe even worse than in Rudi's last year). Yet here we in the quarters of the CL, someplace we haven't been in 10 years.
Haha we have a bunch of pieces that don’t suit EDF (or each other really) and we just grind out results. We aren’t going to see really attractive football until we get about 3-4 different/better/smarter players or the kids step up. It is what it is. We’re making it work and credit to EDF for bringing a different mentality. He talks about it every week, and it looks like it starting to finally hit home for the players. You can still see we struggle in pressure moments, as our fundamentals and situational football in the last 10 minutes against Shakhtar was pretty bad (Gerson ...lol , Florenzi’s suicide throw-ins , silly fouls around our 18 , Nainggolan over pursuing way up the field, Manolas’ stupid yellow etc) this group still has no idea how to win as a collective. The details and the little things become magnified as does remaining calm/focused. At one point a couple minutes after we scored , the camera panned to EDF and he was just aggressively telling the players to breathe and stay calm. I mean , that says it all. You aren’t getting that from Spalletti. EDF knows a lot of what needs to be fixed isn’t tactics or playing with the ball. He talks about it endlessly. That shows he’s able to grasp things beyond the whiteboard. He’s mentally and spiritually in tune with the players/fans and we needed that. More than any tactic or star player. The only way to learn is from experience, though. We just gotta keep grinding.
Having already made the quarters in the CL, if we go on and finish 3rd (or 4th at worse) then this season can undoubtedly be considered a great success and EdF will deserve a lot of credit. It will become very interesting to see what he can do next season with hopefully a better squad. Speaking of mentality. I think the fans also have a responsibility to check their mentality. I despise comments like "i just hope we can be respectable in the quarters and not get thrashed" or even worse "i hope Roma doesnt happen". I'm gonna call that shit out everytime I see it from here on.
I do believe that Roma is dead. We have a team of experienced players who will fight it out even when outclassed. Of course a player like Messi could end the tie with a couple of goals in a matter of minutes (against any team) but I dont see this squad of players crumbling like years gone by. Progress is being made step by step and in the correct way at that, building within our means.
Well, we are most probably not going any further; but thats ok - it has been a fantastic CL season for us. Most of the teams left in the draw would want us and would be confident of putting 3 or 4 past us - and to be honest they are probably right. I just hope our last game is in Rome, so we can score a goal or two for the fans.
No. Stop living in the past would be more appropriate. Every team is capable of being thrashed now and then in the CL. Roma are not alone in this regard. The fact we've suffered some heavy defeats in the CL is irrelevant. Get over it.
The only way Roma beat RM, Barca, MC or Bayern is if they don't show up. If those teams play at 80% of their capabilities and Roma play at 100% they will beat us. I'm living in this moment. Roma had the least amount of point of any group winner this year. We advanced because AM and Chelsea played like shit, especially AM. We barely beat SD. Yes, SD are a good team but not even close to those mentioned above. Those teams I mentioned simply outclass Roma
No other group had 3 solid teams as equally matched. It was inevitable our group would have the lowest points.
AM sucked the first have of the season in both league play and in CL. If memory serves at one point they were one of the lowest scoring teams in La Liga. Chelsea have unperformed all season and are not a great team this yea. Look, lets not pretend Roma have played anything close to good football this season. If this were the Roma from last year I would agree, but this team is not that good and there is no point in pretending they are.
LOL Group of death. I suppose if you just look at names and not actually how the teams have performed both in CL and domestically. Group B - PSG & Bayern - No team in our group makes it out of there. Group D - Barca & Juve - No team in our group makes it out of there. Group H - Spurs, RM & Dortmund - much tougher group and highly unlikely anyone in our group makes it out. Group F - MC, Shakhtar and Napoli - No guarantee Roma makes it out of there. Our group was not even close to being the toughest group. Not the easiest but not the toughest either.