Mancini encouraged by fighting spirit shown

Gianluca Mancini was on the scoresheet as Roma drew 1-1 with Porto on Wednesday night, ending the side's 100% start to pre-season.

Despite that, however, coach José Mourinho will surely have learned more from the game than others - as his side battled manfully against a strong opponent, one further along in their pre-season development.

Speaking after the game, Mancini acknowledged that the match in the Algarve had significantly stepped up the intensity of preparations for the squad.

"It was the game we were expecting, they are a good side - Porto fight for everything," Mancini said.

"The standard is improving. We stood firm out there. Clearly they are bit further along in terms of their preparation, but we held our own. The goal at the end - perhaps tiredness played a role but we could have done better with it. Nevertheless, the performance and the spirit we showed were right, and that's more important at this stage."

He added: "The boss is building the right mentality in us. We still need to fully understand some of the mechanics of things, what he really wants from us, but you can't buy the mentality at a supermarket. So we need to build it ourselves, in every training session and every game, otherwise it won't work.

"We need to fight for every ball if we want to win and if we want to produce performances like today."

The Giallorossi have won four of their five games in pre-season so far, with further significant tests on the horizon before the campaign kicks off in three weeks' time.

"If we look at the [first] game against Montecatini, in terms of tactics we've progressed a lot. And then when you are playing an opponent of this quality there is more edge, there's more desire to win.

"It's a friendly, but when you go out there on the grass there's not that much that's friendly about it. But that's good, that helps sharpen you up. That's how it needs to be whoever we are playing."