Roma play their penultimate Europa League group match on Thursday night as they host Young Boys.
Paulo Fonseca’s side are unbeaten in Group A so far, and have already qualified for the knockout stages. A win would guarantee their status as group winners.
For their final home match in the group stage, they welcome the first team they faced in the competition this season. The reverse fixture against Young Boys saw Roma come home with a 2-1 win after a second half comeback.
One of the scorers that day was Marash Kumbulla, who returns to the squad after recovering from Covid-19. The same goes for fellow defender Federico Fazio.
Two defenders who remain out with different injuries, though, are Chris Smalling and Gianluca Mancini. The latter went off in Roma’s last league game, as did midfielder Jordan Veretout, who is also out for this game; although neither injury is expected to be serious.
Embed from Getty ImagesThere are no other new absences, meaning Fonseca should be able to field a strong side if he wishes. With an important game against Sassuolo coming up in the league, though, he may opt to rest some players.
With that in mind, he has called up four players from the Primavera: goalkeeper Filippo Berti, midfielders Tommaso Milanese and Edoardo Bove, and forward Riccardo Ciervo – the latter three all fresh from signing new contracts last month.
While it is unlikely any of them will start, it would not be too surprising to see some of the outfield players come on if Roma have a healthy lead.
It would be an ideal scenario if that was the case. Fonseca will have half an eye on Sunday’s game against Sassuolo, but is also looking to preserve his unbeaten record at home in the Europa League with Roma.
In fact, Roma haven’t lost at Stadio Olimpico in their last 10 matches. If they are to preserve what is their best run of that sort since 2016, then a good performance tonight will be helpful.
The game kicks off at 8pm UK time and BT Sport subscribers will be able to watch it here.
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