Roma 0-2 Real Madrid: Talking points as absence of Isco points to issue with Solari

With both teams already safely qualified thanks to CSKA Moscow’s defeat to Viktoria Plzen earlier in the day, this game became largely irrelevant and will perhaps be best remembered in years to come for a remarkable incident shortly before half-time.

Dani Carvajal was in possession but under pressure deep inside his own half, and rather than clearing out for a throw in he attempted to retain possession with a risky backheel towards goal.

It went straight to Roma midfielder Nicolo Zaniolo, who was able to roll a simple pass across the face of goal perfectly into the path of Cengiz Under, who had the simple task of sweeping an unmissable close-range finish past the stranded Thibaut Courtois.

Instead, though, Under somehow did manage to miss, side-footing the ball high over the crossbar in a manner he surely couldn’t have contrived if he had tried. The near 60,000 crowd held their collective breath in amazement at what they had seen, and a distraught Under had to be consoled by his teammates as he headed down the tunnel a few minutes later.

Unfortunately, though, his place in the history books is already assured: it is no exaggeration to say his howler was surely the miss of the season, and perhaps even the worst ever seen in the history of the competition.

CRISIS AVERTED… FOR NOW

Under’s memorable for all the wrong reasons over seemed to condition the rest of the game, with Roma still looking to be in a state of shock at the start of the second half and sleepily allowing Gareth Bale to open the scoring with a helping hand from sloppy errors by goalkeeper Robin Olsen and centre back Federico Fazio.

From that moment the outcome never looked in doubt, with the only question being how many more goals Real would score as Roma fell apart. In the end, only one more was added as Lucas Vazquez slotted into an empty goal after nice approach play by Bale and Karim Benzema, but Los Blancos were able to cruise through the final stages untroubled.

In the wake of Saturday’s shock loss at Eibar, this was exactly the tonic Real needed. Another loss would have put serious question marks next to new manager Santiago Solari even this early in his reign, and made the upcoming league meeting with Valencia an absolute must-win affair to avoid another full-blown crisis.

There’s still a very long way to go before Real can truly start to believe their season is back on track. But the renaissance had to start somewhere, and maybe in months to come we will look back on this win in the Italian capital – perhaps even more specifically Under’s glaring miss – as the turning point Solari desperately needed.

ISCO MISSING AGAIN 

The name on everyone’s lips when the teams were announced was a player not even involved in the action: Real midfielder Isco, who was very surprisingly left out of the squad altogether, with Mariano Diaz, Fede Valverde and Vinicius Junior all preferred on the bench.

Apparently there was no injury concern for Isco to explain his absence, so it now looks certain that there is some kind of problem between the Spain international and new manager Solari, who has not picked the midfielder in any of his starting line-ups so far.

Exactly what has been going on remains unclear, but it would appear logical that his omission was a disciplinary measure after Isco showed his displeasure at his lack of recent playing time.

It’s far too early to say whether or not Isco will have any chance of redemption under Solari, but we can be sure to see his name appear in plenty of headlines in the build-up to Saturday’s game at home to Valencia.