Not for some time after the final whistle did Liverpool’s celebrations start to break through the din inside the Stadio Olimpico. Five thousand of the English club’s fans were present to see their team reach the Champions League final, and they roared with a fervour befitting the occasion. Yet they were outnumbered 11 to one by the home support, who hailed their own team even more loudly.
“Grazie Roma,” sang the locals. A simple but effective “Thank you”. That phrase was made into an iconic chorus by the musician Antonello Venditti after the Giallorossi won their second Serie A title in 1983. It is played after games here as a matter of routine but rarely, in recent times, has it been accompanied by a crowd as large and vociferous as this.
Even in defeat, Roma’s supporters found cause to feel grateful. Their team had come within one goal of another miraculous Champions League comeback but it was the resilience they displayed along the way that stirred the emotions as much as the result itself. This tie should have been over when Liverpool made it 5-0 at Anfield, then 6-2 and 7-3 on Wednesday night. Roma never surrendered to the inevitable, never ceased to rage against the dying of the light.
Eusebio Di Francesco likened it to a boxing match. “Would you rather watch two fighters who are wasting time,” posed the Roma manager at his post-game press conference, “or two who are trying to hurt each other?”
The cynical response would be to point out that a significant part of the harm Roma suffered in this tie was self-inflicted. Di Francesco’s high defensive line with a back three in the first leg was reckless, his failure to adjust during that game borderline negligent. Here in Rome, Radja Nainggolan served Liverpool their opening goal on a plate.
Such mistakes will haunt Roma, as they contemplate what might have been. Yet they were forgivable for a fanbase who were thrilled to see their team shed a long-held inferiority complex, even in defeat.
It is enough to think of how Daniele De Rossi spoke after the draw for the last 16 of this tournament, expressing enthusiasm at being paired with Shakhtar Donetsk because they were not, to his mind, one of “the two or three teams against whom, in all probability, we would already be beaten before kick-off”.
At full-time on Wednesday, the captain struck a very different note. “Next year we need to try to win the Champions League because we are not much worse than them [Liverpool],” he said. “These semi-finals should come by every three years, not every 30.”
That shift is a testament to Di Francesco. Speaking to the Guardian before this tie, he honed in on the need to change mindsets in Rome.
“In Italian politics people are constantly saying: ‘Italy has always been like this, Italy has always been like that,’” he reflected. “If everyone always reacts that way, then nothing will change. The same thing holds true here. To change our mentality, we need to move a thing or two, we need to go straight in one direction, trying together to acknowledge the obstacles without losing sight of the final objective.”
It was telling that he preferred not to dwell on refereeing decisions on Wednesday. Although Di Francesco acknowledged that things might have gone differently if Trent Alexander-Arnold had been punished with a penalty and a red card for blocking a Stephan El Shaarawy shot with his hand midway through the second half, he also said these were matters for the club to worry about, not him. He criticised his players for losing time protesting instead of getting on with the game.
Roma’s owner, James Pallotta, was less tempered in his verdict, describing the officiating over two legs as “unacceptable”. The sporting director, Monchi, noted how Juventus had also been on the wrong end of key decisions in their quarter-final against Real Madrid and said Italian clubs needed to “raise their voices” and push Uefa to adopt VAR. (Not that the replay system has resolved all debates in Serie A, by the way.) Sections of the Italian media were more strident still. “Injustice!” ran the front-page headline on Corriere dello Sport. The newspaper’s editor, Alessandro Vocalelli, wrote of “an almost perfect match, ruined by the referee”.
Beyond the Alexander-Arnold handball, reporters highlighted the incorrect offside decision that had denied Edin Dzeko another penalty at the start of the second half, and contended that Liverpool’s third goal in the first leg ought to have been disallowed. Rather less was written about early challenges by Kostas Manolas that could have brought a spot-kick at the other end.
No doubt many fans will share the sense of injustice. And yet it was appreciation, not anger, they offered as the curtain came down on their European dreams.
A year ago these supporters heard their manager, Luciano Spalletti, compare second place to a Scudetto in light of Juventus’ superior resources. This season they have seen their team beat Barcelona, Chelsea and, yes, even Liverpool over 90 minutes.
To come back from three-goal first-leg deficits in consecutive rounds would have been beyond extraordinary. As Luigi Garlando wrote in Gazzetta dello Sport: “If these things happened once a month, then they would not be called miracles.”
