For the second season in a row, Roma Women’s journey in the Champions League has gone no further than the group stage.
Last season it was a defeat away at Ajax – despite Roma taking the lead, which would have put them through if they held on – that brought the curtains down on their Champions League campaign, and this time around a winner-takes-all tie with Wolfsburg on the penultimate matchday ended in disaster with a 6-1 defeat.
Roma now have some big questions to address about their competitiveness in the crucial stages of the Champions League. They qualified from the group stage at the first time of asking back in 2022, before being beaten by Barcelona, but have not got to the quarter-finals since.
On one hand, it may just have been down to the luck of the draw. Back in their first Champions League campaign, a group involving Wolfsburg, St. Polten and Slavia Prague looked hard to win due to the Germans, but not too tricky to progress from. In the two seasons since, Roma’s groups have been tougher: Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Ajax in 2023 and Lyon, Wolfsburg and Galatasaray in 2024.
This is a ruthless competition which allows for very limited slip-ups. This season, Roma showed they can have the concentration to get results against the better sides – beating Wolfsburg in their first group game, which coach Alessandro Spugna justifiably dubbed their best European result so far – but it hasn’t been preservable.
Away at Lyon on 20th November, Roma were competing well and actually took the lead through Giulia Dragoni in the 74th minute. But they struggled to manage their lead as Lyon sparked back into life, ultimately racing away with a 4-1 win. Roma did not deserve to lose by that margin, but had capitulated.
A few weeks later in Germany against Wolfsburg, similar themes followed – but this time in the midst of a worse performance anyway. When Roma equalised through Valentina Giacinti in the 56th minute, their fate was in their own hands, knowing they would have gone into next week’s perceptibly easier fixture against Galatasaray (compared to Wolfsburg’s trip to Lyon) a point above their only rivals for second place and with a better head-to-head record.
And yet there was an even more dramatic collapse, with ex-Juventus forward Lina Beerensteyn putting the hosts back in front and Wolfsburg sub Sveindis Jane Jonsdottir scoring four goals to take the tie – and progression to the quarter-finals – well out of reach for Roma.
If Roma are to become more competitive in Europe, they must avoid similar collapses, maintaining their mental strength for a full 90 minutes like they did in the first fixture against Wolfsburg. It’s exhausting work, but that’s the level the top contenders in the Champions League can maintain.
On the technical side, there were too many defensive errors, with gaps left for Wolfsburg’s dangerous attackers to exploit on countless occasions and players caught out of position.
Roma were fairly wasteful in possession, not getting good control of the ball compared to how Wolfsburg looked after it. Sometimes, it appeared they were rushing too much, even when the scoreline was an encouraging one (even at 1-0 down, Roma would have gone into the Galatasaray game needing a minor miracle, but an eight-goal swing given the respective difficulties of the fixtures would not have been totally inconceivable).
Wolfsburg were ruthless and punished Roma, highlighting the difference in level for this competition. For example, goalkeeper Camelia Ceasar – a genuine club heroine right from the moment she saved penalties to help them win their first trophy three-and-a-half years ago – has been beaten too easily in these group games.
Who knows if summer signing Olivie Lukasova – three inches taller than Ceasar – would have been given more faith in these games had she not suffered an ACL injury before her debut? But Spugna has stuck with Ceasar ahead of emergency signing Isabella Kresche as well.
Ceasar is more than good enough for Serie A, but Roma might need to put sentiment aside and find someone with more authority for future Champions League endeavours. These are the difficult decisions that may need to be made, by a club that have generally been good at spotting areas to upgrade over their six-and-a-half-year existence so far.
Embed from Getty ImagesYet it would be wrong for the club to just focus on who the goals are going past to think they had the answer for how to prevent them. Outfield, Roma need to find the next Elena Linari in defence, or the next Valentina Giacinti up front. That’s not to knock those two players specifically, but it was clear that alternatives were needed to the 30-year-old striker to preserve her energy, while fellow tricenarian Linari is still a good defender but has lost a fraction of her dominant edge and opponents got in behind her too often against Wolfsburg.
Just having a handful of bona fide difference makers isn’t enough at this level. And yet there were absences that held Roma back against Wolfsburg. Spugna could call upon neither Emilie Haavi nor Evelyne Viens, two-thirds of his most dangerous attack alongside Giacinti. They may have been able to cause more danger had they been available.
Instead, Spugna opted for a fairly rigid starting lineup with only one out-and-out attacker. Maybe it was because of availability issues, but maybe he was trying to keep it tight. It’s the sort of approach that can be justified with a good result, but Roma may need to be bolder if they are to establish themselves as Champions League contenders and genuinely go toe-to-toe with teams of this calibre.
Roma now face a long wait to prove themselves in Europe again – and they should not take their qualification for the Champions League for granted, since they are still playing catch-up after a slow start in Serie A. They have made up enough ground now to be close enough to the top three and should be in there by the end of the campaign, but the top end looks more competitive this season than it has been for a long time.
If Roma meet expectations and get over the line, the format of the Champions League will change next season to become more akin to the league phase style Roma’s men’s side are now playing in in the Europa League. They would be facing clubs of all sizes, needing to show signs of development compared to what has happened over the past two seasons.
This is not the time to hit the panic button or make too many changes, with Roma’s downfall on the men’s side over the past six years or so serving as a reminder not to take more successful times for granted or to be hyper-critical. But after their absolute dominance domestically last season, it’s only natural that the women’s side will be viewing Europe as the next way to progress. And that process has been put back by at least another year.
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