AS Roma vs Real Madrid – UEFA Champions League – Preview

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Sreya

AS Roma hosts Real Madrid at Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy on 17th February, Wednesday in the first leg of their Round of 16 UEFA Champions League fixture.

Both clubs had contrasting fortunes during the group stage, with Roma winning only one out of their six matches, which included a 6-1 loss at the hands of Barcelona. Real Madrid, on the contrary, won five of their six game, scoring nineteen goals in the process.

Team News

AS Roma have a lengthy list of injury concerns with Ezequiel Ponce, Vasilis Torosidis, Norbert Gyomber and Kevin Strootman already ruled out.

Gareth Bale will miss the game for Real Madrid due to a calf strain, as will Pepe but Marcelo is expected to return to the match day squad after he missed Madrid’s match against Athletic Bilbao last weekend.

AS Roma Possible Starting Lineup: Wojciech Szczesny, Alessandro Florenzi, Kostas Manolas, Anton Rudiger, Lucas Digne, Miralem Pjanic, Radja Nainggolan, Mohammad Salah, Edin Dzeko, Stephan El Sharaawy.

Real Madrid Possible Starting Lineup: Keylor Navas, Danilo, Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane, Daniel Carvajal, Isco, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, James Rodriguez, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema.

Thoughts From Both Camps

“I don’t think there’s a favourite. We’ve got a 50% chance of going through. I’m very optimistic, as I’ve seen my players improving all the time. I wouldn’t be amazed if it was my team who went through.”

– Luciano Spalletti, AS Roma.

“The Champions League is a different competition to the Liga and Roma are a very good team who know how to play football. It will be difficult, but we have trained well all week and are ready to do our part.

We know the Champions League is special for this club, for me and for the players. We have a little pressure because we are Real, but it’s all good. The players are focused and that is reassuring for us.”

– Zinedine Zidane, Real Madrid.

Contributor’s Pick

According to Head-2-Head statistics, Roma have won four and lost only two of the last six meetings between these two clubs. However, Roma have failed to win ten of their previous eleven matches in the UEFA Champions League.

Real Madrid have won five of the last six matches they played in this competition, keeping a clean sheet in all of them. The Galacticos will start as favourites for this particular fixture and are likely to go into the second leg with a significant advantage – a 3-1 result in favour of the visitors being the most probable outcome.