Roma defeated CSKA Moscow 5-1 at the Stadio Olimpico on Wednesday night in the Champions League.
The Giallorossi dominated the scoring with a brace from Gervinho plus goals from Juan Manuel Iturbe and Maicon. Sergei Ignashevich scored an own goal in the second half and Ahmed Musa got one for the visitors.
After each side took some long-range efforts from Radja Nainggolan and Zoran Tosic for their respective teams, the Roma onslaught began.
Roma took the lead after six minutes. Gervinho dribbled towards the centre and played a through-ball to Iturbe who side-footed a shot past Igor Akinfeev at the near post.
Itrube returned the favour and assisted Gervinho who put the Giallorossi 2-0 up after just 10 minutes. The right-winger crossed low to the Ivorian, who then controlled the ball with his left foot and then struck the ball with his right foot with the second touch.
CSKA Moscow could have pulled the scored back to 2-1 but Seydou Doumbia squandered his chance. After a Roma corner, Doumbia received the ball from halfway, raced towards goal but Giallorossi goalkeeper Morgan De Sanctis stayed on his feet and Doumbia stumbled.
Maicon gave the Giallorossi a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes. Maicon exploited CSKA’s inability to play the offside trap when he ran onto a throw-in and struck an angled drive which Akinfeev struggled to deal with.
Gervinho extended Roma’s lead on 31 minutes. He received the ball on the right-wing, he cut-in, dribbled past one defender who was left grounded and he curled a left-foot shot into the bottom left corner.
Roma nearly extended their lead before half-time but Miralem Pjanic had his angled drive saved by Akinfeev.
The Giallorossi continued in the same vein in the second half. Vasilis Torosidis crossed from the left and Ignashevich headed-in an own goal to make the score 5-0 to Roma after 50 minutes.
Nainggolan thought he had made it 6-0 minutes later but Gervinho was in an offside position.
Roman Eremenko had a rare chance from long range for CSKA Moscow and then Akinfeev failed to deal with a Pjanic shot but his defender cleared the ball away.
Doumbia blasted over the bar with another rare chance for CSKA. Minutes later his side-volley hit the crossbar and then Vasili Berezutski headed the rebound towards goal but it did not hit the target.
Francesco Totti missed a chance to score after he ran onto Alessandro Florenzi’s through-ball.
Musa scored a consolation goal on 82 minutes by capitalising on some poor defending by Maicon and he chipped the ball over De Sanctis.
Kirill Panchenko should have made it 5-2 with a thunderous long-range strike which hit the crossbar and went just over the line but the referee waved play on.
