Luck certainly wasn’t on Roma’s side in Rotterdam, as Lorenzo Pellegrini missed a penalty, they lost two stars to injury and a goal-line clearance denied Roger Ibanez, but 1-0 to Feyenoord leaves the Europa League quarter-final open.
These sides met almost a year ago in the Conference League Final in Tirana, won 1-0 by the Giallorossi. Tammy Abraham and Lorenzo Pellegrini were back in the starting XI, with Rick Karsdorp and Ola Solbakken injured. The hosts missed Quinten Timber and were top of the Eredivisie table, but had goalkeeper Justin Bijlow back in the squad for the first time since late January.
Bryan Cristante’s glancing header was straight at Bijlow and Paulo Dybala curled a free kick over the bar, but Dybala limped off with an adductor issue after just 24 minutes.
Stephan El Shaarawy had two chances straight after coming on, the first was offside anyway and volleyed just over, then his glancing header was off target.
Sebastian Szymanski drilled two attempts wide from the edge of the box, but Roma received a penalty for Mats Wieffer’s handling offence. Lorenzo Pellegrini stepped up and blasted it onto the base of the upright.
Gini Wijnaldum came on against his hometown club, but the hosts came out fighting after the restart and took the lead when Oussama Idrissi pulled back from the by-line for a Wieffer volley into the ground that bounced again right in front of Rui Patricio to enter the near bottom corner.
Things went from bad to worse for Roma, as moments later Abraham seemed to dislocate his shoulder in a simple collision and had to be replaced.
Luck really wasn’t on the side of the Giallorossi, as Idrissi managed an astonishing goal-line clearance to keep out the Roger Ibanez header, nodding it onto the underside of the crossbar and back out.
Orkun Kukcu’s free kick skimmed the near top corner and El Shaarawy really should’ve done better when completely mis-kicking the Leonardo Spinazzola assist from 12 yards.
Kokcu drilled just wide from the edge of the area and Nicola Zalewski’s curler was charged down, while Wijnaldum’s scorcher was just wide of the top corner.
Feyenoord 1-0 Roma
Wieffer 53 (F)
Missed penalty: Pellegrini 43 (R)
Player statistic
| Mats Wieffer |  |
18' | ||
| Sebastian Szymanski | |
35' | ||
| 43' |  |
Lorenzo Pellegrini |
| Mats Wieffer (Assist: Oussama Idrissi) |
 |
54' |
Match statistic
