An unmotivated and relaxed Roma bowed down once again on a plastic surface in Scandinavia. First loss since Ivan Juric took over is a fact.
Yellow-black club colors, plastic mat “trampolino in Svezia” in a cold climate and quite honestly a match that for the day plays minimal sporting role.
Surely we recognize this from before?
Tonight, thankfully, the numbers were not written to 6-1 like the breakdown in Bodö, but be sure that Roma still tremble somewhat before these Thursday matches against anonymous opponents. Tonight’s match was certainly no exception.
Therefore, the loss does not feel like something from another galaxy.
We faced a team that probably played its biggest game in modern times. And when Roma as an opponent invites you to a folk festival and circus in Borås, you also know which players are prepared to die out on the field to be able to tell the story of how Elfsborg beat Roma to their future grandchildren.
As expected, we did not see the Uzbek Eldor Shomurodov, the Saudi Saud Abdulhamid or the Argentine world champion Leonardo Paredes, ready to sacrifice their lives at Borås Arena.
Instead, it was (as expected) an unmotivated and relaxed Roma who thought the away game felt quite dreary and cold.
And when a VAR awarded handball comes our way, we already know it’s the penalty kick. Roma never gets up in that situation.
The message we got to witness tonight was that the rotation players did not measure up. Something that worries because the Baldanzi-Soule combination on each wing should be able to generate points against a team like Elfsborg.
The forcing that Roma was forced to do was of course too bad. But it once again symbolized how disinterested the players are before these group stage matches against motivated upstarts playing the match of the year. Already when the clock had passed the hour, there was still no hope (at least in my mind) that the Elfsborgs bus would be able to loosen up, regardless of Dybala, Pellegrini or Dovbyk.
We’ve seen the movie about the crash in Scandinavia before, and we know it ends in loss. And as salt in the wounds, both provocative but also comical if I’m being honest, the schism between Per Frick and world champion Paulo Dybala resulted in a yellow card for Paulo, at the same time as some chants of “Maradona” echoed from the Elfsborg stands.
Maybe not a situation you saw coming a year ago.
Purely sporting, of course tonight’s loss does not mean an exodus from Europe.
With the new “league game”, there are still as many matches remaining as in the old group stage, namely three away and three at home.
But the spontaneous feeling after tonight is that the Europa League might as well be washed away in favor of a better league game.
This season, a cup-fixated Mourinho is not on the sidelines, there is no honeymoon period with Daniele, and Dybala, as everyone knows, will not be able to play from the start every Thursday, if now our substitutes in the form of a Saudi right-winger and an Uzbek striker, should look so pale.
Juric is here as an interim, thus “all-in” in my opinion on the league game and secure the Champions League place once and for all.
After all, we congratulate Borås on their historic evening and hereby hope that Roma will never play in Scandinavia again.
End of suffering, Monza away awaits Sunday! Bye.
0 commentsMelker GaddMelkerG_202024-10-04 00:50:00
