Re: UEFA Europa League 2023/24 Season

Honestly I'm not expecting Roma to lose tomorrow. Most people would favour Leverkusen but I still think Roma won't lose home in the 1st leg. De Rossi's arrival has started to change things for Roma. They are stronger and especially in home matches I have really liked their performance so far. Even against Xabi Alonso's team I think De Rossi won't be losing already.

But for the second leg I wouldn't have the same opinion. I already favour Leverkusen to advance to the final. But I just expect a tough challenge before that. Grin

It's a tough game to predict as I am not sure what to expect from Roma. Leverkusen will play their high speed football and try to score at all cost. That's just how they work and they are not the kind of team that would try to play down the clock and take a draw. Roma, however, is probably going to adjust their game to whatever happens. If they score quite early in the game, I think they will try to slow down and destroy Leverkusen's game rather than focusing on their own game. If they could achieve a win with just a goal difference, they would definitely take it and play the typical Italian style in the second leg. Hopefully they don't score early as it's no fun to watch these games when Italian teams are parking the bus.

Parking the bus is a must for italian club. How good or bad the gameplay from the team doesn't even matter. The history is always writting the winner from the league. It doesn't really matter what gameplay to get the trophy as long as you get a trophy and you were a winner. There's no need to feel parking bus is shameful strategy to be used.
Think about how to win the competition. It will be shameful if your team is always playing football without even winning the trophy. The value from the big club was when it was winning a trophy.

Roma is gonna destroy leverkusen soon. Lukaku can play alone at upfront since he has very good physic to be one on one or even two on one.

Inasmuch as the ultimate goal in football is actually to win trophies and teams now do whatever it takes just to secure that trophy, I still believe that always relying on a defensive minded approach such as parking the bus could turn out to pretty much limiting and wouldn't really bring out the thrill of the game, I mean football is an amazing game that requires a lot of things, which includes the player's creativity as well as a good attacking intent rather than just focusing on the defensive aspect or just nullifying the opposite team.

Besides, when such approach or strategy is always used by the team, it'll be very difficult for the players to develop or learn to be creative because such technique focuses more on destruction over creation.
I'm not saying that it's wrong to employ such technique, I'm just saying that teams should learn to find the balance between defense and offense because that's what actually makes the game pretty much interesting.