Roma lose in Europa League
Not only failed, Roma also lost their forces when they lost two main strikers because of injury. Paulo Dybala had an adductor problem on his right thigh and made way for Stephan El Shaarawy after 26 minutes. In the second half, it was Tammy Abraham's turn to dislocate his shoulder and be replaced by Andrea Belotti. A few days earlier, Ola Solbakken also dislocated his shoulder and stopped playing for the rest of the season.
After the match, coach Jose Mourinho revealed Dybala, Abraham could miss the next two matches and continue to complain about the Roma force. "We don't have Erling Haaland in attack and just try with the force available," said the Portuguese coach. "The players showed dignity and strength, had a chance to get a good result but that didn't happen."
Yesterday, Roma dominated in the first half and had a chance to go ahead in the 42nd minute. Mats Wieffer let the ball touch his hand inside the box from captain Lorenzo Pellegrini's corner, helping Roma win a penalty. It was Pellegrini who took the responsibility of kicking 11m, but he hit the left post.
In the top five European leagues this season, Roma hit the woodwork the most with 26 times, followed by Bayern and PSG with the same 23 times.
This was the turning point when Feyenoord scored the decisive goal early in the second half. Oussama Idrissi dribbled the ball past Nicola Zalewski on the left and then passed it out of the box for Mats Wieffer to catch a one-touch volley and hit the ball diagonally, out of reach of goalkeeper Rui Patricio.
In the remaining minutes, Roma exerted great pressure but squandered many delicious opportunities. The most notable situation came in the 63rd minute, when Roger Ibanez's header from near the wall was broken by the Feyenoord player and hit the bottom edge of the crossbar and went out. Goal-line technology confirms that the ball has not gone all the way to the goal line. Then, in turn, El Shaarawy and Georginio Wijnaldum failed to finish.
Therefore, Mourinho complained that Roma could not "finish" the match like when losing to Salzburg 0-1 in the first leg of the Europa League play-off. At that time, Roma won 2-0 in the second leg to continue, and Mourinho believed that the students could reproduce this scenario. He also denied replacing Pellegrini with Wijnaldum at the beginning of the second half because the Italian midfielder missed a penalty.
This weekend, Roma meets Udinese in the 30th round of Serie A, and Feyenoord is Cambuur's guest in the 29th round of the Dutch league, before a rematch at the Olimpico on April 20.
