Europa League: Ciao! Bye Bye Roma!
Europa League: Ciao! Bye Bye Roma!
Written by Lawrence Prince-Wright
This last Thursday (25-02-10), despite pessimism, proved to be a spectacular day for Europa League showdowns. Upsets, joys, anger, anxiety and all sorts of emotions where mixed into Thursday‘s cauldron of football mayhem! Personally the performance of the teams which battled it out on Thursday evening conveyed the high level of prestige and competition that the Europa League has to offer; keep in mind that it is the Champions League little brother making it the second biggest European league worldwide. The number of goals scored that evening averaged out to be at around 3 per game, most definitely illustrating the level of excitement that kept fans anxiously on the edge of their seats. Liverpool while showing a rather lousy performance domestically, managed to secure a 4-1 aggregate score against Romanian rivals Unirea Urziceni. Similarly underdogs Fulham managed to proceed onto the next round by defeating former European champion giants Shakhtar Donetsk 3-2 on aggregate. Despite the splendid news it is to hear that two English sides are advancing on to the next stages of the league, I am also thrilled to mention that Panathiniakos have knocked out the Italian stallions A.S. Roma after a fascinating 3-2 victory at Stadio Olimpico.
Although it was not a day for the ‘sensational substitutes’, it was however a day where Cisse proved to spectators that he’s still got that Liverpool form, and 19 year-old Sotiris Ninis left his mark on awe-struck spectators by scoring his first (and definitely not last) international goal of his career. The two teams met in Athens last week, and their meeting this Thursday was very similar, if not identical. The scores were the same, and the order in which they were scored was similar, the only difference was the stage that the games were played out at.
One would have thought that with 7 consecutive victories in the Serie A under their belt, winning on the weekend and being just behind Inter Milan in the Serie A, Roma should have proved fortunate in their Europa League endeavour. But then again, I suppose, it seems that in football statistics and trends don’t prove to have any hold on the future. Panathiniakos, still top of the Super League suffered a decisive 2-1 loss against PAOK this past weekend allowing the gap that they have in front of Olympiakos and PAOK (both tied second with 50 points) to be shortened by a mere two points.
Despite the setbacks that Panathinaikos have suffered I honestly think that Roma have been hit with the bigger blows. Their two most valuable strikers (Francisco Totti and Luca Toni) have once again been forced to take the back seat in this epic match due to injuries which they still have not fully healed from. To make it worse, one of them (Francesco Totti of course) is their captain, their pillar of morale and perseverance and without him, well for Roma at least life seems to have gone low. Obviously the captain certainly doesn’t paint the whole picture of the team, of course not! What I’m saying is that without the captain a pretty big piece of the painting is missing, and that sure is a big problem.
Similarly to the first leg Roma got the first goal in with thanks to John Arne Riise’s freekick which managed to strike, from a deflection, into the bottom right corner of Tzovra’s goal. Although the early 11th minute goal may have demoralized Panathinaikos it wasn’t enough to stop the Greek giants. Within the space of 5 minutes before the end of the first half Panatha bombarded Doni’s goal with Cisse managing to sock two goals in and 19 year old Ninis proved his worth when he struck a beauty from outside the 18 yard box perfectly placing it in the bottom right corner. Both teams went into the dressing rooms leaving the fans of both sides to look both astonished and mesmerized.
Coming back refreshed for the start of the second half, Roma’s dominance proved crucial in the 67th minute when a sloppy deflected save from Tsovras allowed De Rossi to easily tap in the ball. However more pressure from Roma didn’t yield any results in terms of breaking the ‘thrylos’ when Vucinic’s final attempt on goal (from a freekick) proved not to be much of challenge for the likes of Tsovras.
The whistle was blown with Panthaniaikos beating Roma with just ten men, allowing them to continue onto the next stage of the Europa League and sending the Italians packing home. In the next round the mighty greens face Belgian team Standard Liège, a game which may seem to give off the impression of being an easy win for the greens. But one must not forget to what happens to teams which underestimate the underdogs, as Roma unfortunately learnt the hard way.
What did you make of the past week in Europa league action?
