Miralem Pjanic dissects Roma’s route to the Champions League Last 16, and admits it was the minimum objective.
The Giallorossi were perhaps fortunate to qualify from Group E, taking just six points and ending the group with a -5 goal difference.
Luciano Spalletti's men take on Real Madrid tonight, trailing 2-0 from the first leg, and the Bosnian explained the story of their campaign so far.
“Reaching the last 16 was definitely our objective from the start,” Pjanic told UEFA’s official website.
Miralem Pjanic dissects Roma’s route to the Champions League Last 16, and admits it was the minimum objective.
The Giallorossi were perhaps fortunate to qualify from Group E, taking just six points and ending the group with a -5 goal difference.
Luciano Spalletti's men take on Real Madrid tonight, trailing 2-0 from the first leg, and the Bosnian explained the story of their campaign so far.
“Reaching the last 16 was definitely our objective from the start,” Pjanic told UEFA’s official website.
“The group was balanced, we expected to get through with more points: it was a group where you didn’t know until the last game who would go through, but in the end we deserved to progress.
“Obviously Barcelona were favourites given that they won last year. Leverkusen and BATE were good opponents, complicated to deal with.
“Every so often we happen to mention Florenzi’s goal against Barca. It was truly a beautiful goal, difficult to repeat. It really was perfect, I hope for him that he can score another goal even better than that, but it’ll be hard.
“In Leverkusen we started the game very badly. We were 2-0 down straight away to an opponent that does great pressing from the start, and that leaves you little space.
“They hit us right at the start, but then the team showed great mental strength and we brought it back to 2-2 and then go on to lead 4-2.
“The game was a bit crazy and couldn’t have finished like that, at the end we committed errors and they scored another two goals that we absolutely should’ve avoided.
“We knew that we couldn’t mess up the fourth game, even against Leverkusen at home, a draw wouldn’t have been good enough and we had a lot of pressure on us after just two points from nine.
“But we believed in ourselves and achieved what we wanted. And I think deservedly so.
“The penalty against Bayer was a vital goal, important for the team. Again a match against Leverkusen in which we led 2-0 and were penned back to 2-2.
“We could’ve finished it in the first half, in the end there was that penalty and I took on the responsibility, the important thing is that the team won.
“There was a lot of pressure on that game, it was obviously an important goal and I was happy.
“Against BATE once again everything depended on us and we finished with a 0-0 after a complicated game during a complicated period for the whole team.
“It finished 0-0, we waited for Leverkusen and Barcelona then, who in turn drew. We got through, but there was a lot of tension during that match.”