Ahead of Roma’s vital fixture against Napoli tomorrow afternoon at the Stadio Maradonna in the well-renowned Derby del Sole within match-week 34 of the Serie A, the Giallorossi boss Daniele De Rossi provided his insight in the pre-match press conference.
“The biggest difficulty at the moment is to prepare for a lot of matches one after another, have a few days in between to prepare for each of them and have strong opponents like Napoli in this case, Bologna, Udinese, and all the upcoming ones.
“Fresh forces would be needed, but in most cases the others also have a lot of commitments, we feel sorry for ourselves, it will be a very difficult match because we are facing perhaps the only team that is close to Inter in terms of level of players. Last year they were unstoppable this time of year. They’ve had some difficulties this year but we’re going to face a tough team,” commenced the former Roma skipper, as relayed by ForzaRoma.Info.
As it stands, the Capital club currently sit in fifth-placed with a total of 58 points, four points ahead of sixth-placed Atalanta whom have a game in-hand.
The Giallorossi have managed to find a solid run of form, having attained 10 points out of 15 available in their last five Serie A outings. Despite suffering a kink to their armour after having been humiliated by Bologna in a 3-1 defeat on home soil, Roma seek to feed off of their recent 2-1 victory over Udinese in order obtain a positive result against a Partenopei in order to keep their Champions League aspirations intact.
When asked about what to expect in terms of atmosphere tomorrow evening, De Rossi stated:
“There is always this strong rivalry. On the day of my farewell I made a joke about the Roma fans who I missed at home but also my opponents who made me feel important. Naples was a stadium that because of the sporting hatred it reserved for me made me feel like someone who was considered. I certainly wasn’t indifferent. Tomorrow maybe there will be a bit of nervousness towards their team. It will be a hostile environment, but we are ready to play too in opposing camps. We also did it in Europe”
De Rossi also touched upon the emotional impact of their last-gasp winner against Udinese Thursday evening in courtesy of holding midfielder Bryan Cristante heading into the match against coach Francesco Calzona’s side:
“Did the victory in Udine help? Absolutely yes. It shouldn’t help too much because we haven’t done anything, we have regained 3 points that we would have liked to have taken with Bologna. We have put things back in order a little, but nothing changes. We must not feel relaxed. Our goal is very difficult to achieve also considering the calendar. We have to start tomorrow to take another step in that direction.”
Finally, the former Italian international provided his perception regarding the race for Champions League football as only five matches remain within this year’s campaign, providing very little room for errors:
“I started here three months ago and if they had told me I was fifth, four points behind Atalanta and six from Lazio, with a few days to go , I would have signed it knowing where we were starting from. We rekindled this race, we made it not just a dream, but something possible.
“We know it’s the weight of the teams behind who are very strong of the calendar which is not easy at all. We are very aware that we have had great matches against very strong teams like us. We have also had bad matches against less strong teams. If they had said that Atalanta had scored a point between Cagliari and Verona we would be laughed at. Towards the end of the championship the lower-ranked teams can be more annoying than the others.”
