Out-of-sorts Roma host lacklustre Real in Champions League opener
AS Roma are looking anything but Champions League contenders as they prepare to host the world's most successful club side Real Madrid of Spain on Tuesday in their opening Group A match of the season.
AS Roma are looking anything but Champions League contenders as they prepare to host the world's most successful club side Real Madrid of Spain on Tuesday in their opening Group A match of the season.
The appetising match was picked by most as the highlight of the first round of games in the 2001-2 tournament but both sides are yet to impress in domestic competition this season.
Both may have won their home competitions with panache last season but neither are yet to get out of first gear this term although Tuesday evening's meeting at a packed Olympic Stadium could light the fuse that could launch either side to a landing in Glasgow next May where the final will be contested.
Roma still have bitter memories of the last time they entered Europe's premier club competition as Italian champions 18 years ago.
In 1983-4 during the heady days when Italy were the newly crowned world champions a Roma team including the likes of World Cup heroes Bruno Conti, Francesco Graziani and Brazilian playmaker Paulo Roberto Falcao booked a place in the final against Liverpool at their own Olympic Stadium in Rome.
But it was the English side who would prevail on penalties after a 1-1 draw. Liverpool fans credit the result to the 'spaghetti legs' antics of maverick Zimbabwean goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar during the shoot-out, Roma supporters still blame Falcao for refusing to take a penalty.
However, Roma coach Fabio Capello - who once won a Primera Liga title with Real - can take comfort from the fact that his former club have also made an indifferent start to the Spanish season.
The eight-times European champions, two-times World Club Champions and FIFA Team of the Century are yet to sparkle in Spain this season and on Tuesday will be without their world record close-season signing Zinedine Zidane.
The 65 million dollar Frenchman is still paying the price for his foolish headbutt against a Hamburg SV defender during last season's campaign with Juventus.
However, Real will be able to replace Zidane with the man he replaced as world's most expensive player in Portugal's Luis Figo who sat out the weekend 1-1 draw with Malaga, again through suspension.
As for Roma they will welcome back skipper Francesco Totti who was replaced by teenager Antonio Cassano during the 1-1 draw with Udinese but they will be perturbed by the form of goalkeeper Ivan Pelizzoli.
Pelizzoli was signed by Capello during the summer from Atalanta to replace Francesco Antonioli, seen as the weakest link in the Championship-winning side but some are already calling for Antonioli to return.
Capello had harsh words for all his team after the Udinese match, saying: "We gave Udinese a big present and they can not believe their eyes."
Capello, who coached AC Milan to the 1993-4 European Cup when they drubbed Barcelona 4-0 in Athens, is hoping to become only the third man to lead two separate clubs to Europe's premier club accolade to follow Austrian Ernst Happel (Feyenoord and Hamburg SV) and German Ottmar Hitzfeld (Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich).
Next year's final at Glasgow's Hampden Park still seems a long way off for both Real and Roma. But with Belgium's Anderlecht and Lokomotiv Moscow of Russia the opponents in Group A both sides will at least feel they can progress to the second stage regardless of Tuesday's result.