Roma emerged undefeated against “Maradona” thanks to a goal from Abraham, who equalized Osimhen’s 2-1 on a penalty.
Here’s what Mister De Rossi said after the match.
With what sensations do you leave this stage: how much is this point worth?
“It’s worth one in the standings, and it’s not worth too much from a morale point of view, because it’s not accompanied by such a convincing performance. I repeat, we hadn’t done badly against Bologna: we had had some chances and the episodes had all gone the wrong way, while today, even if you took one point more than the match against Bologna, you played a subpar match, against but a team that is very strong.
To win we would have had to put in a truly super performance, and evidently we weren’t capable of doing that against a team like that.
They prepared it in a particular way, in a difficult moment they brought out the pride of champions, of players who are truly difficult to face.”
Azmoun took the penalty and Tammy equalized it – their contribution was positive, do you agree?
“Yes, because episodes make a difference in football, positively and negatively, and they were the protagonists of these episodes. They helped us as much as they could. They too could have done better, although Tammy came in at the end.
We can always do better, but I’m happy with the attackers I have. It wasn’t an easy game. When you play against such strong teams, the first thought is to take the ball away from them. Take it away from them not when they have it, but when you have it: take away their pace and take away the possibility of getting close to our area, because then you could sense that they could be dangerous when they get the ball, with all these quality players.
And in my opinion, we didn’t keep the ball well, because we could have done something more, something better. And the performance of the attackers would also have been much more positive.”
The fundamental thing is that you are always involved in the matches, and even in this one, which was extremely difficult, you drew because you were on the ball.
“We are doing things well as far as performance and above all results are concerned, because the progress has been quite positive since I arrived, and I am also satisfied with the attitude. There are those teams that, when they play badly, always lose and there are those that, when they don’t play very well, in the end have a bit of heart, a bit of head, a bit of experience to bring home at least a draw .
We didn’t cover the ball very well, in the second half we allowed a little too much depth to a player who occasionally finds himself in arrogance, because he is so much faster than everyone else (Osimhen, ed.). I’ve now seen the one-on-one opportunity on the wing again, it didn’t even seem that dangerous at the time, but we can do better even in those circumstances.
(He is shown the replay of Mancini’s save on Osimhen, ed.). Here, here Mancini saves a goal already scored. I have players who, even in not exceptional matches, are part of our season: that is, they want to get something out of this season, knowing that it will be very difficult.
Another triptych of even more difficult matches is about to begin. We have Leverkusen, Juve, Leverkusen, Atalanta… Without forgetting the last two (with Genoa and Empoli, ed.) which we hope will be interspersed with the Europa League final.
It’s hard, we tell ourselves, we know it, but stop telling ourselves too much, because we have to find the strength to score the points we need to get to the Champions League or to win the Europa League.”
How do you hit, beat Bayer Leverkusen?
“Honestly, I also thought Milan were very strong, I was also afraid of Brighton and Feyenoord, because they are somewhat similar teams because they had in common the fact that they wanted to play football and prepare for matches against teams that want to play football it’s a little more difficult.
One of the ingredients will be to play a very careful game in the defensive phase, but above all, as always against teams that play football, to make it run without the ball. This has always been an interesting solution, because they have very good players, who dribble well, who have many offensive weapons, and if you take the ball away from them they get nervous, they lose balance, they lose order.
We will have to try to do both phases perfectly because, if they never lose, and above all if they have the heart to equalize twenty, if I’m not mistaken, at the last second, it means that they have something special. They are undefeated, but there are no unbeatables.”
