AS Roma produced one of the finest comebacks in Champions League history as they ran out 3-0 victors against Barcelona in the second-leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie, writes MARSHALL GOUTS.
Barcelona XI: ter Stegen, Umtiti, Nelsinho, Piqué, Alba, Iniesta, Rakitic, Busquets, Sergi Roberto, Messi, Suárez
Roma XI: Alisson, Juan Jesus, Fazio, Manolas, Florenzi, De Rossi, Nainggolan, Kolarov, Strootman, Schick, Dzeko
Barcelona went into the tie with their tails up following a comprehensive 3-1 victory in the first-leg of the tie.
The home side started the brighter of the two teams and were rewarded for their early attacking intensity when Eden Dzeko showed great compsure to control a ball over the top before slotting it past the goalkeeper.
Roma showed no signs of letting up on their intensity as they continued to carve out the Barcelona defence, with Dzeko in particular proving to be a nuisance.
Barcelona barely threatened with the central-midfield pairing of Kevin Strootman and Radja Nainggolan working overtime to nullify the threats of Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi.
Roma should have doubled their lead in the 29th minute after Federico Fazio picked out Patrik Schick, but the forward’s effort failed to hit the target.
There was no goalmouth action to speak of for Barcelona in the first staza, while Roma proved wasteful towards the latter stages with efforts from Dzeko.
Roma came out in the second half guns blazing as they did in the first and were awarded a penalty in the 56th minute which captain Daniele De Rossi duly slotted away.
It was one-way traffic as Roma continued to launch numbers forward. The Serie A outfit came agonisingly close to levelling the aggregate score
Roma completed the comeback in the 82nd minute when Kostas Manolas got the run on defender Nelson Semedo before guiding the ball towards the farpost.
Barcelona made two late substitutions in a bid to save the game by bringing on Ousmane Dembele and Paco Alcacer for Semedo and Sergio Busquets.
In the end, it proved too little too late as Roma produced one of the finest performances to secure a memorable victory from behind to knockout out favourites Barcelona.
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