De Rossi: “To turn it around we need the perfect game”

Here's what he had to say...

How's Paulo Dybala looking? Will you save him for Atalanta?

“No one will be saved for Atalanta. I'll assess things and decide with the players, the doctor and the medical staff, but it will be based on how they might be able to perform, not Atalanta. We need to take a careful look at him and the others. It's only been a couple of days. We won't decide anything based on Sunday. This is such an important match for us. We can't take it lightly or prioritise the next game. I want to talk about it with him and the doctor. And I don't want to tell you anymore.”

Bayer Leverkusen have issued ticketing details to their fans for the final in Dublin. What did you make of that?  

“Those are mistakes made not by the coaching staff or the players. It's a matter for the ticketing office or whoever else deals with those things. And I think the Bayer team and staff will be fully focused on the semi-final second leg. They won't snub us. In any case, we all saw it and it won't stop us from sleeping. We didn't need any more motivation.”

Have you read Gian Piero Gasperini's comments about the 'code yellow'?

“You're really looking to stir up trouble, aren't you? [speaking to the journalist and smiling] That's two carefully chosen questions... I was expecting this one though. We'll talk about it when we play Atalanta, not today because it doesn't have much to do with football. We'll talk about it further down the line, if you want, otherwise not at all.”

What will you need to do differently to the first leg and what will you need to do again?

“First of all, we must constantly strive to score. When we weren't trying to score they did a really good job of pulling us out of shape with their pressing game, but at the start of the match we were excellent at pressing them ourselves. They're a team who like to keep the ball moving. We created some chances ourselves when they lost a bit of inertia. That's when we performed at our best – the way you should play a semi-final. And that bodes well for this game. The end of the first leg is the perfect lead-in to the second leg.

“They have a healthy lead and they've never lost but we must believe and keep trying, as we did until the last second of the first leg, creating some fairly clear-cut chances. That will give us the best chance in this game. We know it will be difficult to get the result we need but that's what we've come here to do.”

Thinking back to some of Roma's greatest victories, like the Barcelona comeback, what will you say to the team before the match?

“I don't know. Sometimes I prepare something beforehand: other times, I just say what comes to me. Before the Barcelona game, I said to my team-mates – as captain – that I trusted them, and I'll say the same to these players.

“They've got us here with their individual and collective performances and with their personal qualities. I trust them and I'm sure they'll produce the performance we need to try and complete the comeback. Against Barcelona, we were playing at home and we had virtually no chance. It was almost easier to make the impossible become possible as we were carefree. That doesn't mean we can say we'll go through but we're ready to make a real game of it and open up the tie again.”

Is the 4-4-2 formation without the ball something you might use more frequently in games?

“Sometimes an idea that has nothing novel about it can become a good idea because of how the players perform. Sometimes you make do with what you have. The idea for Stephan [El Shaarawy] came about to protect the flank more against [Rafael] Leao and [Theo] Hernandez. We'd seen [Nicola] Zalewski playing for Poland on the side of his stronger foot, so not inverted, and that got us thinking that the wide players we have could do a good job on the opposite flank.

“We don't really have an out-and-out winger who hugs the touchline. We have Paulo, who we want to come inside a lot, but sometimes it leaves that side of the pitch a bit open and we lose width, so we push the full-back right up. It's something the lads have done well – Rick [Karsdorp], Zeki [Celik] and Rasmus [Kristensen].

“But having someone who's used to playing as a winger and having [Leo] Spina[zzola] on the other side – he can perform well high up the pitch as I've often seen him there with the national team – can be a useful option for us in the future and also in the present.”

What three things – if three are enough – will you need to turn the tie around?

“Three might not be enough. Sometimes you might just need one or two. Mental strength for sure. A bit of patience and total focus. That's without going into anything technical. We have no more room for error. We can't make any more mistakes. At this level you pay for mistakes. Fortunately it's not the final so we still have a chance to make up for the mistakes we made in a game where we matched them at times.

“We still have some margin for manoeuvre but it's the last time we'll have any. If it had been a final, we would have already lost and congratulated our opponents. We did that anyway but we still have another chance to try and play the perfect game. They're unbeaten in 48 matches and one of the teams from those 48 matches reached the Champions League final last night and another one will be trying to get there tonight. That means they're a special team and we must recognise that. But among those 48 games there were also times when they struggled; there were teams who played well and nearly beat them – in the Europa League too. As I said, we need to be perfect. They're very hard to play against. And if you want to be perfect, you need to be strong mentally, patient and play with real heart.”

Are you expecting Bayer to play without a centre forward, like in the first leg?

“I don't know if it will be like the first leg. We prepared two different games. We thought they would play with a big man up top because that's how they'd played 90% of the time. But we'd also considered that on some occasions, like against Bayern, they played with a false nine or with little guys up front, with [Jeremie] Frimpong higher up and [Josip] Stanisic behind. That's the beauty of this job: preparing matches.

 “When you only have two days, the first day is recovery and the second you prepare for the game partly with videos and partly on the pitch. You try to give the players a few notions they can take on board, not loads of things, just the most likely things they'll need. Once the line-up is in you try to explain anything else they need to do. If they then change mid-game, you have to instruct them from the dugout.”