Act V: The Bogey Team Finally Gets Battered
Saturday 25th April brought Roma to the Olimpico, which ordinarily would have been enough to make me nervous regardless of what the league table said. They’d been something of a bogey side throughout this save, most painfully the previous season when they scored in the 94th minute to beat us 2-1 and ultimately cost us a point in a title race we would lose to Inter by exactly one. This season Roma were languishing in the upper reaches of mid-table and had very little left to play for, but history had taught me not to care too much about form whenever they appeared on the fixture list.
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. Pietro Pellegri produced arguably his best performance of the season, opening the scoring after half an hour before adding another in first-half stoppage time. Roma hadn’t even had time to recover when Pellegri grabbed his hat-trick, sending us into the break 3-0 ahead and we’d generated more than 3 xG while barely allowing Roma a sight of Urbig’s goal.
The second half was considerably quieter. Roma eventually pulled one back through Merino Alex’ old bench-warmer, but there was never any real sense that the game was getting away from us. They finished with three shots, one on target and just 0.43 xG; we had seven shots on target and 3.12 xG. Lazio 3, Roma 1. Given that we’d played 120 minutes and penalties against Inter only three days earlier, it might actually have been one of the performances I was most pleased with all season. This group had every excuse to be exhausted and distracted, particularly with what was coming next, and instead they’d comfortably beaten a side that had caused us problems throughout the save.
There wasn’t much time to enjoy it. Four days later Liverpool were coming to the Olimpico for the first leg of a Champions League semi-final. Manchester City had already gone. Inter had been knocked out twice in the space of a week. Somehow, with May approaching, we were still fighting on three fronts. And for the first time, reaching the Champions League final didn’t feel like something completely ridiculous to contemplate.
Next: Liverpool at home. Champions League semi-final.