The Roma coach: “Going +7 over Juve would have been a big step forward, but we’re still there. The glass is half empty only because of the late goal, but the performance is half full”
An understandable bitterness and a tie that feels like defeat despite the +4 maintained in fifth place. Roma had to come back twice and sensationally wasted their Champions League knockout blow against Juventus. At the end of the match Gasperini does not hide his disappointment but invites us to look on the positive side “Going to +7 over Juve would have been a big step forward, but we are still there. The regret is great, but we are coming out of an extraordinary match, it shouldn’t break us down but rather give us strength for the future. The glass is half empty only because of the late goal, but the performance is half full” began the coach. “The Juventus players rejoiced as if they had won and now we should get depressed? Explain to me for a moment! There are 11 games left, the championship didn’t end today eh – Gasp then added -. It’s not like you can get depressed for conceding a goal at the last minute. The draw was a good result before playing it, then with how it went I understand the regret. But we’re still at +4 eh. If they’re celebrating why should we cry or go under the table, sorry?”.
passive
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Gasp, however, cannot help but regret the goal conceded late on. “It’s the first goal conceded on a free kick taken from distance. We were passive, stationary even if placed well. Inter, Napoli and Milan manage to straighten out the game in the final stages by throwing very skilled people into dead balls and aerial play, while we could have done better. This free kick should have been attacked. It can be used in the final stages of the match to exploit speed and counterattacks like on the occasion of Malen’s goal – continued Gasperini -. When you have a player like him he can lower you a bit to exploit the spaces. We had to be more physical, Cristante’s exit took something away from us in the air. We weren’t good, we conceded 3 similar goals from balls thrown into the area. On the first one Conceiçao scored an extraordinary goal, on the other two we were passive. This is the only criticism today, but football requires us to be careful until the referee blows his whistle.” The Giallorossi still have an impact on the taboo of big matches and, just like in Naples, they lost very heavy points. “But we came close to winning both against Milan and Napoli and against Juve. Then there are the details and we have to pay attention to this”, concluded the coach.
