When the draw for the Champions League semi-finals was made, Liverpool fans would have been thanking their lucky stars. They’d avoided the powerhouses, two-time defending champions Real Madrid and a rejuvenated Bayern Munich. Instead, they were paired with Roma.
Of course, this is the Roma team that is coming off a 3-0 win over Barcelona, completing an apparently impossible comeback from 4-1 down after the first leg, so whether this was indeed a desirable draw remains to be seen.
No team reaches the semi-finals without having performed well enough to be there, and the Italians, though naturally the long shot out of the last four, will like their chances of reaching the final.
Indeed there are shades of last year’s Monaco in this Roma side. That both defied expectations to reach the semi-finals is the obvious one, but the similarities run deeper.
The average age of Monaco’s Champions League squad was 25.3. For Roma, that number is 24.9, with the average age of the squad that beat Barcelona 25.6. The improving Patrik Schick (22), Cengiz Under (20), Lorenzo Pellegrini (21), and Gerson (20) form a young core, with 25-year-olds Stephan El Shaarawy and Alisson and 26-year-old Alessandro Florenzi the youthful ‘veterans’ amidst that potential.
With that youth comes a team capable of playing thrilling attacking football. The overall numbers aren’t as awe-inspiring as Monaco’s young side managed – Roma have 55 goals in Serie A this season, far off Lazio’s 83, Juventus’ 78, and Napoli’s 71, and 15 goals in 10 Champions League games. But there have undoubtedly been results that showed their attacking potential. They put three past Chelsea on two separate occasions and repeated the feat against Barcelona, and they scored four against Napoli away from home in the league. On their day, Roma can be just as thrilling to watch as the Kylian Mbappe-led Monaco was.
The veteran striker leading the way in front is another parallel. For Radamel Falcao last year, read Edin Dzeko. Like Falcao, Dzeko had a middling spell in England before regaining his best form, winning the Capocannoniere with 29 goals last season. The Bosnian has missed the presence of Mohamed Salah, the former Roma player who will line up against his old side on Tuesday, but in the absence of such a brilliant playmaker, after a difficult stretch the striker has recently shown just how good he is in his own right.
While he hasn’t matched last year’s goals tally, he’s scoring more important goals. A goal in each leg against Barcelona and two in the group stage away game against Chelsea show someone who is rising to the occasion. His total of six Champions League goals this season is a new club record for a single campaign. It goes without saying that he will be the danger man against Liverpool.
And yet, it is what sets Roma apart from Monaco that could make the difference. They’re much more organised defensively – only Juventus, Napoli, and Inter Milan have conceded fewer in Serie A – and their youthfulness is augmented by a cadre of experienced players, including Dzeko. The squad against Barca had an average age of 25.6, but the average age of the starting XI was 28.3.
Daniele De Rossi and Aleksandar Kolarov are among the veterans in this Roma side.
Eusebio di Francesco’s chops as a manager also give them an edge. Monaco’s Leonardo Jardim earned deserved accolades for ditching his conservatism with such attacking talent on his hands, but could he have pulled off the sort of tactical tweak that Di Francesco did against Barcelona, switching to a 3-5-2?
The biggest difference is the calibre of opposition. Monaco were unlucky in drawing Juventus, with their defensive nous and veteran savvy. Liverpool are an excellent side, but there are vulnerabilities to exploit.
Roma may draw from Monaco’s experience last year, but there’s just enough in this side to go one step further.
