European Cups: Milan and Roma too much suffering, but Italy flies

Now we need fate to lend us a hand. It doesn’t matter that it reaches the unattainable heights of last season in the quarter-finals of the Champions League – three Italian teams on the same side of the table, all the best on the other side – but it should at least preserve Milan and Roma from the most difficult quarter-final that could happen: the one against Liverpool. For goodness sake, if he also keeps Xabi Alonso’s beautiful Bayer Leverkusen and De Zerbi’s Brighton away from us, we don’t mind at all. But we are content to avoid Klopp; with all the others we play on equal terms, more or less. Yes, the draw: today, in Nyon. Milan and Roma, having passed the playoffs against Rennes and Feyenoord, have joined Atalanta among the best sixteen teams in the Europa League and are waiting to find out their next opponents.

The Bergamo team are also waiting, but they start with a great advantage: having won the preliminary round they have saved themselves the play-off and now they will not face another top seed but one of the teams promoted yesterday. Among which there aren’t any terrible ones. There are, yes, some potential fascinating opponents to face and challenging to beat: Benfica, Marseille, Sporting. But – as mentioned – nothing impossible. The qualification of Milan and Roma is also very precious for the ranking, which will assign one more team in the next Champions League to two countries. Italy is in full swing to have five, even if the journey remains long. It almost seems that our clubs – as they say for other issues – are “building a system”: they obtain important results, they move forward in the cups, so the whole movement gains from it. Solidarity between rivals, in short.

In the matches played so far since the resumption of the cups, we have lost only one out of seven: that of Milan in Rennes (for the rest three wins and three draws, then Roma won one on penalties). Signs of confirmation after the three finals reached a year ago. Speaking of Milan. In France he had to play a real match, after all only a naive person could believe that Rennes would not have attempted the (almost) impossible comeback after the 3-0 in the first leg. Pioli’s team suffered too much, but they had the merit of responding blow for blow: twice down, twice tied in the space of a handful of minutes (first eleven, then four). It seemed that Milan waited until they were behind to take things seriously. It’s true that he didn’t recover the 3-2 lead, but at that point the match was nearing its conclusion. In short, qualification has never really been at risk; the fact remains that the Rossoneri lost their second consecutive match after the one in Monza and conceded another three goals (they became seven in two matches and in five days). Positive notes, in addition to the qualification: Jovic’s sharpness, after the unfortunate expulsion he received on Sunday; Leao’s goal, after many errors; the zero minutes played by the thirty-seven-year-old Giroud (he hadn’t missed an entire match since January 2nd, it’s in everyone’s interest that he recover some energy).

Roma had to go all the way to penalties to defeat Feyenoord: the technical superiority of the Giallorossi was not enough to overturn the Dutch’s initial advantage, spot kicks were needed. De Rossi thus achieves another goal, after having won four out of five matches in the championship. It is a qualification that is worth a lot because the comparison with Mourinho’s team is continuous and José has led the Giallorossi to a European final twice in a row. For Daniele the first trials were already ready, although this time the feeling is that the young Roma coach delayed the changes, so much so that at a certain point there were too many players on the pitch who were walking rather than running; when fresh forces came in, from Baldanzi to Angelino, the team regained strength and could even have won at the end of extra time. That De Rossi has the magic touch so far is confirmed by the fact that it was Svilar who decided the match, the goalkeeper who imposed it by taking out Mourinho’s Rui Patricio. So, in the end, qualification arrived. And it is important for Roma and for Italy.