Roma players told to ‘believe’ in their ability to complete comeback against Liverpool

It's not over until the fa lady sings

Reuben Pinder

Roma players told to ‘believe’ in their ability to complete comeback against Liverpool

It’s not over until the fat lady sings

In the first leg of this Champions League semi-final, Roma looked to be dead and buried after Liverpool stuck five goals past them at Anfield, taking advantage of the visitors’ tactical naivety and lack of pace in defence. However, the tie was just about kept alive by a late resurgence from Roma, as they reduced the deficit to just three goals in the latter stages of the game.

They still face a mountainous task of scoring three goals without conceding against a Liverpool side who have managed to score in every single Champions League away game this season. But they’ve done it before. Football fans have short memories but we all remember the quarter-final between Roma and Barcelona, when Costas Manolas’ late header sent Roma through to the semis, having lost 4-1 at the Camp Nou.

Roma boss Eusebio Di Franceso is calling on his players to show the same fight, and ‘believe’ in their ability to come back from a shocking first leg.

The Italian side go into the second leg off the back of a 4-1 league victory over Chievo, and Di Francesco is very happy with his team’s reaction to the 5-2 defeat against Liverpool. Speaking after their win over Chievo, he said:

“The lads got their approach spot on and it wasn’t easy to go into this game with the right mindset.

“We played some excellent football. We moved the ball around really well, fashioned plenty of chances and probably deserved to score a few more.

“We have to recharge our batteries, mentally and physically, so that we’re able to go out there and give our absolute all. We must be confident and believe we can turn the tie around. We’ve shown what we can do once and we’ll try and do it again.

“So the first thing is belief. That’s my message – ‘believe’ – and it’s what I’ll try to drum into my players. I’m sure we’ll produce a top performance and we’ll be really psyched up for it.”

He was keen to emphasise the impact this win would have on the players’ mentality going into the semi-final second leg:

“The lads really wanted to produce a performance like this and they went out there in the right frame of mind determined to do well.

“Then there was the penalty incident which could have opened the game up again, but fortunately Alisson pulled off a superb save. That’s great for his confidence after the goals he let in at Liverpool.”