Roma 3-0 Barcelona: Romans stun Barca in Champions League elimination

AS Roma produced one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League history on Tuesday night as they fought back from a 1-4 first leg deficit to eliminate Barcelona from the competition on away goals following a 3-0 win at the Stadio Olimpico.

Striker Edin Dzeko won a battle of strength with the Barcelona defence before putting the Serie A side in front on six minutes.

With such a commanding lead very few people across the world would have expected that to have caused Ernesto Valverde’s side any problems.  After all, they scored four goals at the Camp Nou only one week ago.

However, some nerves may have been kicking in just before the hour when Dzeko was brought down inside the penalty area allowing Daniele De Rossi to convert a penalty to make it 2-0.

Surely it wasn’t going to happen?  Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez were both up front with the talents of Andres Iniesta and Ivan Rakitic behind them.

But it was Eusebio Di Francesco’s side who continued to take the game to the visitors and shortly after Marc-Andre ter Stegen had denied Aleksandar Kolarov from close range, centre-back Kostas Manolas peeled away from his marker to head home an inswinging corner on 82 minutes.

Barcelona threw on Paco Alcacer and Ousmane Dembele for the final five minutes plus stoppage time but failed to cause any problems for Brazilian goalkeeper Allison.

Roma were joined in the semi-finals by Liverpool this season who were 2-1 winners on the night at Manchester City and 5-1 on aggregate.