Kevin Strootman insists Roma must “aim higher” in Serie A and the Champions League next season, as he pledges his future to the club.
The Dutch international missed practically two years to a series of devastating knee injuries and remains grateful to the club for standing by him.
“I’ve made 99 Serie A appearances for Roma, but it should’ve been many more. I’ve been playing regularly and want to have a lot more games in the Roma jersey,” he told the Match Program for Roma-Juve.
Kevin Strootman insists Roma must “aim higher” in Serie A and the Champions League next season, as he pledges his future to the club.
The Dutch international missed practically two years to a series of devastating knee injuries and remains grateful to the club for standing by him.
“I’ve made 99 Serie A appearances for Roma, but it should’ve been many more. I’ve been playing regularly and want to have a lot more games in the Roma jersey,” he told the Match Program for Roma-Juve.
“At the start of the season, our objective was to challenge for the Scudetto, but now we need only a point to ensure we’re in the Champions League next term.
“We’ve seen how wonderful it is to play in this competition, as the stadium was packed and the whole city felt involved. We did really well in the Champions League, but unfortunately in December and January dropped too many points in Serie A to continue the Scudetto race with Juve and Napoli.
“It was a great run in Europe, we gave our all, so it’s disappointing we weren’t able to reach the Final. We did want to do more in Serie A, though.”
Strootman was in the stands of the Stadio Olimpico for the 4-2 semi-final win over Liverpool, which wasn’t enough to overturn a 5-2 first leg defeat.
“It was really annoying. You work all year and your whole life to play games like that, but I was injured. We were unable to turn it around, but still went out with heads held high.
“I said afterwards that I was proud to be a Romanista and I meant it. During the first five minutes, I just stood and looked at all those people… A packed stadium like that is worth at least an extra nine Serie A points!
“It was spectacular, both inside and outside the stadium, and what we’d always wanted.”
There was a similar atmosphere at the Olimpico when Roma beat Barcelona 3-0 in the quarter-final, despite losing the first leg 4-1.
“That was a special night. We played the first leg pretty well, despite the result. We wanted to win, but I will admit I didn’t believe we could all that much.
“After Edin Dzeko’s opening goal, the second after the restart and then the third arrived at just the right time, not too early, so they didn’t have time to recover. It was all perfect, the most wonderful match of my life.
“If I think back to those games against Atletico Madrid and Chelsea, I remember we need only one point to ensure we have experiences like this again next year.
“It’ll be difficult and a lot depends on the luck of the draw, but we want to do better than this year and that means reaching the Final. For now it’s not an objective, we’re taking it one game at a time, but we have that desire.”
Juventus also need only a point to mathematically win the Scudetto, but Strootman assures there is no marriage of convenience here.
“We want to win, just as they will want to beat us. Juve are the strongest side in Italy and have won for the last seven years in a row. Napoli had a great season and still couldn’t win the Scudetto.
“We did well, but at the end of the day we didn’t win anything. We want to win and therefore have to work even harder. We can’t be content with what we have. Next year, we have to aim higher.”