Paulo Fonseca saw the right ‘attitude’ from Roma in their 5-1 aggregate win over Sporting Braga. ‘We want to go as far as possible’ in the Europa League.
Some of the work was already done with a 2-0 first leg victory in Portugal, but Edin Dzeko, Carles Perez and Borja Mayoral completed the rout, even with Lorenzo Pellegrini missing a penalty.
Paulo Fonseca saw the right ‘attitude’ from Roma in their 5-1 aggregate win over Sporting Braga. ‘We want to go as far as possible’ in the Europa League.
Some of the work was already done with a 2-0 first leg victory in Portugal, but Edin Dzeko, Carles Perez and Borja Mayoral completed the rout, even with Lorenzo Pellegrini missing a penalty.
“We played with confidence, we won and that was the most important thing, as well as resting some players for the next game. I think we did well,” the coach told Sky Sport Italia.
“I think the attitude has been good. Getting Rick Karsdorp to play as a centre-back isn’t easy, but I like it when players make a sacrifice for the team.
“We showed respect to a quality Braga team, but I think we won deservedly.”
Dzeko scored a goal, but then went off with a suspected groin injury.
“We’ll see what happened with Dzeko. I don’t think it’s anything serious, but we need to evaluate it tomorrow and see what the tests say.
“I liked both Dzeko and Borja Mayoral when he came on. I believe it’s very good for the team to have this competition for places in attack, I am satisfied with both.”
Roma will face Milan in Serie A on Sunday evening, pushing their way into the top three.
“It’s an important match for us against a very strong team. We need to get our players recovered in time to be ready for Milan.
“We had no squad rotation options in defence, but it was important to win the first leg in Braga so we could rest others today.”
Roma are through to the Last 16 of the Europa League, who does Fonseca think could win?
“These are all strong teams. It’s difficult to choose one, we’ll see what the draw says tomorrow, but we want to go as far as possible.”