Roma have a tall task ahead of them in their Women’s Champions League quarter-final tie with the dominant Barcelona, but they’ll be dreaming of a sensational upset, Apollo Heyes previews.
The Giallorosse secured their spot in the knockout stages of Europe’s premier club competition with an impressive campaign in Group B, finishing with four wins and a draw, just behind group winners VfL Wolfsburg.
Highlights from this include their incredible back-and-forth clash with St Polten in late October, a seven goal thriller in which Roma secured a 4-3 victory, and their dominant 5-0 win over the same side in the Italian capital in mid-December.
Two players in particular stood out for the Giallorosse in their group stage campaign – midfielder Manuela Giugliano, who scored three times and provided two assists, and forward Valentina Giacinti, who netted three goals and supplied one assist.
The pair are the creative lynchpins of the Roma squad and will need to conjure up some magic in their toughest ever test.
Roma have drawn Barcelona in their Women’s Champions League quarter-final tie, setting up an almost impossible task for Alessandro Spugna and his squad.
It’s hard to talk about the Blaugrana without using superlatives. The team are one of the most dominant ever seen in women’s football and currently sit at the top of Liga F with a perfect record – 20 wins, no draws, no defeats.
Their Champions League campaign was almost as impressive, winning five of their six outings and dropping points just once in a 3-1 loss to Bayern Munich in early December, a match that Roma will have undoubtedly studied closely.
Barcelona won their first Women’s Champions League title in the 2020-21 season and finished as runners up to Olympique Lyon in last year’s campaign, leaving them hungry for revenge on the European stage.
The Blaugrana’s standout player is the two-time Ballon d’Or Féminin winner Alexia Putellas, who has scored 134 goals in 293 league games for the Catalan giants. Another key figure in their squad is Aitana Bonmati, who produced five goals and five assists in their group stage campaign this season.
The odds are seriously stacked against Roma heading into this quarter-final clash, with Barcelona dominating every attacking metric in the Women’s Champions League this season, having the most goals scored (29), seeing most of the ball (62.5%), the most accurate passing (87.2%) and the most attempts on goal (163).
In comparison, the Giallorosse sit far behind in all of these, scoring just 16 goals, with an average possession of 54.8% and accurate passing of 75.67%, taking just 137 shots in total.
For Roma, this is their first ever campaign in the Women’s Champions League, but Barcelona have reached the quarter-finals for the last eight consecutive seasons, showing the gulf of experience separating the two sides.
Barcelona will likely see this clash as just a stepping stone on their path to retake the European title, but for Roma this is the most important tie of their history, and they’ll be dreaming of a fairy tale story as they look to pull off the impossible.