Daniele De Rossi calls for ‘sacrifice’ from his Roma teammates to stop Lionel Messi and Barcelona.
The Giallorossi face the holders in the Champions League tomorrow, and the Italian international acknowledges the difficult task they face.
“Barcelona are special,” De Rossi explained in the pre-match Press conference.
“They’re stronger than anyone in terms of teamwork, and they have the best player [Messi]. Usually there are strong teams with less individuals, or strong teams with one outstanding individual.
Daniele De Rossi calls for ‘sacrifice’ from his Roma teammates to stop Lionel Messi and Barcelona.
The Giallorossi face the holders in the Champions League tomorrow, and the Italian international acknowledges the difficult task they face.
“Barcelona are special,” De Rossi explained in the pre-match Press conference.
“They’re stronger than anyone in terms of teamwork, and they have the best player [Messi]. Usually there are strong teams with less individuals, or strong teams with one outstanding individual.
“We’ll have to play the match with a great spirit of sacrifice, as a team, guiding and helping each other.
“Messi almost always gets past one man, we’ll have to be compact and help each other.”
Blaugrana Coach Luis Enrique spent a year on the bench with Roma, and De Rossi was asked whether the Spaniard wasn’t given enough time.
“I don’t know. He resigned, so you can’t really blame the club or the environment. It was a strange season, there wasn’t much positive feedback from you [the media], obviously you had no interest in doing so.
“He’s shown elsewhere that he’s not a fool. I like him as a person. I’m happy for him and his staff, as they’re good people.”
Comparisons have been made between this game, and the 7-1 humbling at the hands of Bayern Munich last season, and the vice-captain admits that result hit the Lupi hard.
“Last year was a strange game,” De Rossi began.
“Certainly the values are similar, we’re talking about the two most dominant teams in the world. Tomorrow we’ll play one part of the qualification process, it will be important, but not decisive.
“We can’t think that what will happen tomorrow could affect us in the League, they’re two separate things, but losing like that [to Bayern] hit us hard.”