Roma v Bayer Leverkusen – Preview: Giallorossi in need of victory to qualify for next round

Date: 3rd November 2015 at 9:31pm
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Roma will play a crucial Champions League match on Wednesday night against Bayer Leverkusen.

Roma are currently fourth in Champions League’s Group E with only two points after three matches. They drew their last match against Bayer Leverkusen, in a thrilling 4-4 clash two weeks ago. Having also incredibly lost to BATE Borisov, the Giallorossi must come back with a win from this match to maintain some hopes of qualifying for the round-of-sixteen.

Bayer Leverkusen on the other hand can play with less pressure, albeit they must be careful not to lose points on their run for the second spot of the group, behind title-holders Barcelona.

It will be the second time that Bayer have travelled to Rome this season, as they played against Lazio in August in the third qualification playoff. They lost that match, and Roma will try to emulate their city rivals in this instance.

Roma’s coach Rudi Garcia would like to shift his Champions League form with Roma. In the two years of the Champions League he ‘had with the Giallorossi, Roma have won only once. Roma are yet to win an European match in 2015 and haven’t won in the past eight Champions League games.

However, the Giallorossi are in good form and have finally recovered almost all their key players, apart from long time injured Kevin Strootman and club captain Francesco Totti. Roma lost their last match against Inter and are currently one point behind Serie A leaders Inter and Fiorentina.
Sporticos_com_as_roma_vs_bayer_leverkusen

Bayer lost their last game 2-1 against Wolfsburg, interrupting a month long unbeaten run. Currently they are seventh in the Bundesliga, with seventeen points after eleven games, fourteen points behind leaders Bayern Munich but only three short of the last Champions League’s spot.

Roger Schmidt, in his second season in charge, has some key players out, including club icons Stefan Kiessling and Lars Bender. Other notable unavailable players include right-backs Roberto Hibbert and Tim Jedvaj and World Cup winner Christoph Kramer.

Despite these absences, Bayer can still count on the skills of Hakan Calhanoglu and will rely on him to continue the unbeaten record that they have with Roma. In fact, Bayer drew two and won one of the past three encounters with Roma.

Form Guide: Roma (W-D-W-W-L) Bayer Leverkusen (D-D-W-W-L)

Expected Starting XIs:

Roma: Szczesny, Maicon, Manolas, Rudiger, Digne, De Rossi, Nainggolan, Pjanic, Gervinho, Dzeko, Salah.

Bayer Leverkusen: Leno, Donati, Tah, Papadopoulos, Wendell, Kampl, Ramalho, Mehmedi, Bellarabi, Calhanoglu, Hernandez.

 

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