'We are not 11, we are an empire': Juan Jesus's epic reflection on Barca night

The Brazilian was a starter that night, playing his part in one of the most incredible comebacks in football history.

Posting on Instagram, the centre-back - on the night tasked with playing on the left side of a three-man defence - offered an evocative insight into what it was like for him that night.

Here's what he wrote:

It is 10 April 2018. My name is Juan Jesus, and I find myself in Rome, in the changing room of the team that carries the Eternal City’s name. There’s just over an hour to go until our Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona.

We lost the first leg 4-1. We’re basically already out.

Except I look around and I see something different, I feel something in the air. My teammates move around in front of me and they look prepared. In their eyes I see a glimmer. In mine, meanwhile, there’s a incredible desire to go up against Him – Leo Messi.

Yes, that's right - because among all the tasks I could have been given in a match like this is, that’s the one I’ve been handed. Coach Di Francesco has been clear: ‘Juan, you need to press and to stop whoever comes into your part of the pitch’. You already know who is always operating in that area.

Exactly – Him.

I think about it, but I’m not scared. There’s a bit of apprehension, of course. But I think that’s normal, as I reflect on it all while putting on my shinpads. I tell myself: ‘If things go badly, it’s because he is the best of all time’…. but there is also another option, my friends! The other side of the ball, the other 50%. And, at the same time, I hear the fans outside getting fired up.

And so yes, there is another option: ‘If things go well, I can help my teammates, I can play my part, I can become someone who stopped Him. This is my chance’.

I am not one who scores a lot, you won’t watch me going mad in celebration and becoming the man on the front pages the next day. I know that – that’s a role that will go to Edin [Dzeko], or to Lele [Daniele De Rossi] and others.

I chose a different life; a life of staying back and fighting in silence. But we are important too, and today we have to place our building blocks too.

I believe it, I tell you…. I want to tell everyone, I want to shout it out. I’m walking around and at my side appears [Kostas] Manolas, who perhaps understands what I am thinking and tells me, telepathically: ‘We will go through’.

When we say it together it gives us strength. We whisper it at first, but we start to believe it.

We start to raise the volume.

And then he arrives, Daniele De Rossi. It’s time for the captain to say his piece. Everyone is quite. The only sound is his deep voice. He has the eyes of someone who has not slept. We sense it. From our lockers we unite, shouting together. And Lele fires us up in his own way.

He says four magical words that hit us all square in the chest: ‘I BELIEVE IN YOU’.

He ends his speech shouting it out; ‘Tonight we make history’.

Guys, think about that for a while. If you had to go into war, who would you want alongside you, charging with you?

It's De Rossi.

And we had him.

We could have bottled that feeling. What had been a crazy thought of mine and a few others - small, irrational and perhaps even presumptuous – had now become something concrete. Something we believed and the Catalans would now have to find a way to deal with.

We were fired up with thousands behind us, the stadium looked like a love letter in our hearts. I heard every cheer, every word. I thought about how many had criticised me up until that moment, and I wasn’t scared of them. I wanted to shut them up.

They were just waiting for the right moment to jump on me. Instead, I had just been waiting to show the world how you fight when you have ROMA written on your chest.

I walk out and I see them, the aliens: Pique, Busquets, Jordi Alba, Rakitic, Suarez… and then Iniesta and Messi. Chills. We reach the pitch and…. Waooo! What a sight!

Noi siamo la Roma.

We are not 11, we never have been. We are an empire and it’s Barcelona that are coming up against us.

We are heading out onto the pitch, listening to that magical club anthem, but the only thing I can hear is my heart beating rapidly. I feel like crying, seeing the fans and thinking about all the steps my life has taken to bring me here, on this grass, at this moment. Not bad! I almost smile in happiness, but the tears are there too.

The tension is almost overwhelming.

I think about my family, my friends and my wife in the stands, about my agent who always told me that I would do it. A lifetime passes through my mind in 10 seconds. Incredible.

Ten interminable seconds. Time almost stopped. I was in the most beautiful place on Earth, in the most beautiful moment on Earth. I could stay in that moment forever, a moment we all dream of reaching. But the whistle goes and it wakes me up. Reality calls and it arrives like a train: the Champions League anthem begins.

The war cry ends the silence and the two teams line up, ready to go into battle.

In my head, returning like an annoying buzz, is the mantra I was reciting myself earlier in the changing room: ‘I have to stop him, I have to stop him, I have to stop him.’ It never stops. We are lined up but I can’t stop looking across to the other side and seeing Leo Messi.

The music stops.

The meeting with history arrives.

5,4,3,2,1…

I will stop him! For me – but above all for all of you!

And, of course, we all know how it turned out...