Champions League: Another Freaking Away Goal

By: Martha | April 4th, 2007

Wilhelmsson You know, the Milan game scarred me so badly that I’m actually feeling relieved Man U didn’t tie it with the last kick more than anything else right now. And that’s not right, especially when Roma spent nearly an hour up a man. 2-1 is better than 2-2, obviously, but I just hope that one goal doesn’t come back to haunt the giallorossi.

Like Milan yesterday, Roma started out on fire, and the first 10 minutes or so were amazing to watch. I love Roma when Wilhelmsson is really involved in the attack, and he was the focus of 85% of what they did going forward early on. He was getting central much more often than he normally does, and even switched flanks periodically, which you don’t see him do in Serie A much at all. Whether the change was due to direction from Spaletti or just in response to what Man U were giving them, it was fantastic. The problem, however, was that not a lot of shots were being put on goal and, eventually, Roma slowed down, and the magic stopped. Totti was not his best, the backs were a little unpredictable and despite little explosions of awesome from the impressive Mancini, Van der Sar wasn’t exactly quaking in his boots.

Even after Paul Scholes (who was evidently doing his best Walter Samuel bull-in-a-china-shop impression) got a well-deserved second yellow, Roma failed to go back into that high gear and were instead content to just keep the ball and poke ineffectively at Man U. And, to their credit, the English club really never looked troubled being down a man — an argument could really be made that they attacked more freely with the added space. And, when Rooney tied the game with incredibly impressive patience, the goal came at the end of a great move and certainly wasn’t undeserved.

Lucky for the giallorossi, things pick up a bit the moment Vucinic stepped on the pitch (possibly because he started playing forward and centrally, like Wilhelmsson had been doing at the start), and he pounced on a deflection to restore the lead. Thankfully, even with the frighteningly strong runs of Cristiano Ronaldo pressing Man U forward, no miracles occurred and Roma are heading to Manchester next week up two goals to one. Which is good. It’s just that away goal, man. That thing scares the hell out of me.