One of the biggest blunders of Italian football unfolded last night on the European stage.
Wow. During the first 30 minutes of the first leg in Portugal, I was almost certain Roma was going to wipe Porto off the field. Now, in retrospect, this failure may be one of the most embarrassing moments in Italian football of the last five years – and there’s been plenty.
Arguably, this decade for calcio Italiano has been a complete and total disaster compared to other eras. Since 2009, the Italian team in the UEFA Champions League playoff round has only qualified twice to the group stage. Roma’s failure though isn’t just in the fact they won’t be in the group stage for Europe’s main event, it’s the fact they went out in such a horrific fashion.
3 red cards, a penalty and club legend Francesco Totti not even getting a sniff in what was his last hurrah in the Champions League, compounds one of the worst displays of football over the course of two legs. It’s a major disaster, because from what we saw in the opener of Serie A and the first leg in Portugal, Roma were clearly the better side.
Instead, the aggregate score is 4-1 in favor of the Portuguese and now the Giallorossi will feel a ripple effect through their fan base to their balance sheet. The missed qualification to the Champions League immediately cost the club €25 million, while allocating €15 million more to rivals Juventus and Napoli. But more so than that, it’s the fact that despite putting together a much more complete team than Porto yet they won’t have a chance to show it.
What were the players thinking? Thomas Vermaelen alone cost them a convincing win in Portugal, and Daniele De Rossi, a true veteran of the game should have known that a studs up tackle at the shin was always going to be a straight red. Emerson? He didn’t play regularly nor do well at Palermo. Why Spalletti through him on twice is beyond comprehension.
And that’s where Spalletti has to be held accountable too. Playing De Rossi in defense was a critical error and left no anchor or regista in the midfield to conduct attacks. Why Federico Fazio wasn’t tasked with filling in for Vermaelen is simply astonishing. Why Emerson was the man who came on when they went down to 10 men again is baffling.
There’s no true way to sugar-coat this nightmare. Yesterday was a complete and total failure for Roma that could have ramifications in multiple areas for the next 12 months.
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