Pablo Daniel Osvaldo, Michael Bradley and Mattia Destro scored in Roma’s win over Aris Salonika, but all eyes were on Manchester City target Daniele De Rossi at the Olimpico.
Pablo Daniel Osvaldo, Michael Bradley and Mattia Destro scored in Roma’s win over Aris Salonika, but all eyes were on Manchester City target Daniele De Rossi at the Olimpico.
The last couple of days were dominated by talk of a Manchester City offer for the ‘Future Captain,’ so the 40,000 fans chanted his name and unveiled a banner that read: ‘Hands off De Rossi!’
The midfielder was introduced to the crowd with the speaker’s words: “He chose Roma for life. Our most important signing – Daniele De Rossi.”
Osvaldo was set up by Miralem Pjanic to fire in a right-foot strike and open the scoring after 25 minutes.
New buy Federico Balzaretti’s screamer was beaten away with some difficulty, while Francesco Totti fired over the bar.
After the restart Balzaretti’s cross curled on to the head of Michael Bradley, but the American was denied by a fantastic Vellidis save.
Bradley’s celebration was only postponed, as he did manage to beat the Aris goalkeeper with another header from Rodrigo Taddei’s cross.
Erik Lamela was also denied by the impressive goalkeeper, but Vellidis made a mistake in the final minutes and Destro did not let the chance go begging for his first Giallorossi goal at the Stadio Olimpico.
Roma 3-0 Aris Salonika
Scorers: Osvaldo 25 (R), Bradley 71 (R), Destro 86 (R)
Roma: Stekelenburg (Lobont 73); Piris (Dodo 84), Burdisso, Castan (Romagnoli 62), Balzaretti (Taddei 62); Bradley, De Rossi (Florenzi 62), Pjanic (Marquinho 74); Lopez, Osvaldo (Destro 74), Totti (Bojan 61)
Aris Salonika: Vellidis; Papasterianos, Papazackarias, Pantidos, Aslanidis; Sounas, Kapetanos; Kaznaferis, Tryantafylliakos, Papasterianos; Iraklis
Ref: Russo