Finally a European victory for Rome: after two months of waiting, the Giallorossi return to triumph in the Europa League, reopening the race towards a place among the best eight teams in the competition. The overwhelming success against Sporting Braga was decisive, even if the final 3-0, decreed on Siebert’s whistle, does not do full justice to the domination of the Roman team. The result could have been much broader, but it still remains an important step for the European path of Capitoline education.
“The performance was positive, even if at times we carried the ball a little too much. The boys pushed, looked for the victory and wanted to entertain the crowd, creating many scoring opportunities. You can’t want everything at once. Pellegrini and Abdulhamid? Pellegrini finally found the goal that we saw was coming in training. As for Abdulhamid, since I arrived I’ve seen him as an arrow in training if I couldn’t experiment him in friendlies. I’m happy with his reaction”, Claudio Ranieri’s comment at the end of yesterday’s overwhelming match.
On the shields are captain Pellegrini, scorer of the goal that broke the ice, but also the Saudi full-back, who made the most of the opportunity granted by Ranieri. Kone’s performance was also decidedly positive, but it was the whole team that was fully convincing after weeks of painful apathy.