Eusebio Di Francesco insists Roma “must respect Barcelona, not be afraid of them” and says they won’t have to stop only Lionel Messi.
The Giallorossi face the Blaugrana in the Quarter-Finals of the Champions League, with the first leg at the Camp Nou on April 4.
“We’re thinking about it, but we have to think about Bologna first,” Di Francesco cautioned, speaking to Sky.
Eusebio Di Francesco insists Roma “must respect Barcelona, not be afraid of them” and says they won’t have to stop only Lionel Messi.
The Giallorossi face the Blaugrana in the Quarter-Finals of the Champions League, with the first leg at the Camp Nou on April 4.
“We’re thinking about it, but we have to think about Bologna first,” Di Francesco cautioned, speaking to Sky.
“It’s a very important match to hold on to third place, a game which should give us great satisfaction. We must face it calmly and with the desire to do well.
“Stopping Messi? I haven’t talked about one player in particular, we have to stop all of Barcelona.
“They have the best player in the world, so we’ll obviously have to pay him special attention, even if that doesn’t mean man-marking him.
“To the fans I’d say we can do it, we must respect Barcelona, not be afraid of them.”
The Giallorossi appeared to be capable of mounting a Scudetto challenge, but they dropped away badly in December.
“I try to look forward, we could have done better but we had that difficult period. I did always feel that Juventus and Napoli had a little bit more than us.”