Roma sporting director, Monchi, appeared on Roma TV this afternoon to discuss yesterday’s miraculous elimination of Barcelona. These are his words:
How many hours have you slept?
Four. I went to bed at 3.00 and woke up at 7.00 to go to the gym.
That is probably the average number of all the Romanisti.
Also of Pallotta.
How many messages have you received?
I still do not know. I could not answer all of them, but more than 300 certainly. There is one issue, my Spanish mobile is still off, when I turn it on there will be others. It’s always nice that people send you a message, it means they think of you and are happy for you, it’s important.
What sort of night was it? When did you realise it could happen?
Before the match, I played it out so many times in my head and I thought it was important to get to the end of the first half with a goal and without having conceded and this happened, it was the right path. Then I thought that if we had scored the second goal with enough time, the third would also come. These were the dynamics, the fans were with us, the team was getting stronger, Barcelona was in trouble. Scoring the second goal was the hardest thing, the third came on its own. When Daniele scored, that’s when I thought we could do it.
You broke the “mai ‘na gioia” (never a joy).
Roma advanced because we were better than Barcelona, in every facet. The team was much superior. It is true that they have Suarez, Rakitic, Iniesta and Messi and in every single minute they can score goals, but the feeling was positive. We did not see a difficult situation, Alisson did not have to make an incredible save. It is always said that the goalkeeper must be the best on the pitch against these teams, Alisson had the right display and wasn’t bothered, which means that Roma were superior. Yesterday I spoke with many Spanish radio stations who called me and I said that over the course of 180 minutes, Roma deserved qualification, yesterday we were superior but even in Barcelona it was not fair, we were punished unfairly relative to what we saw on the pitch.
