Roma needs Pjanic to conjure some Champions League magic vs. Leverkusen

Miralem Pjanic has no need for magic tricks. Observing his spell-binding free-kick goal against Empoli on Sunday, Gazzetta dello Sport mistook the Roma midfielder for "a sort of wizard, perhaps even a little Harry Potter."

Ask Pjanic himself, however, and he will tell you that such feats owe less to sorcery than they do to mental arithmetic.

"My teacher was Juninho [Pernambucano]," said Pjanic, recalling the year he spent alongside the Brazilian dead-ball master at Lyon. "But he hit his in a different way to mine. The ball danced off his boot, like it does for [Andrea] Pirlo. I drill myself, I practice shots over and over to improve my precision. Not to work on the trajectories, though – I already have those in my head. I know the distances from the goal."

Had Pirlo been present, he would no doubt have responded that his technique, too, was learned through countless repetitions in training. He talks at great length in his autobiography about the process that went into him learning to imitate Juninho’s ‘Maledetta’.

It is true, though, that Pjanic strikes the ball differently to Pirlo and Juninho, trusting in angles and velocity where those two would often outwit goalkeepers instead with their ability to make the ball move in the air.

If an interest in numbers has helped Pjanic to refine his technique, then here are a few that might aid our understanding of how crucial he is to Roma: so far this season he has had a hand in eight of the Giallorossi’s 20 Serie A goals, scoring four and providing the assist on just as many.

His strike against Empoli was his third from a free-kick in this campaign, more than any other player has managed across Europe’s top five leagues. It was also his 10th such Serie A goal since joining Roma from Lyon in 2011. Only Pirlo, with 12, has more over the same span – and even here, Pjanic’s success rate is better. The Bosnian has had fewer opportunities, sharing set-piece duties in Rome with Francesco Totti.

Now, though, the times are changing. At 39, Totti’s role for Roma is finally being reduced. The club captain appeared to have lost his place in Rudi Garcia’s first-choice XI even before suffering the thigh injury that has kept him out of action for the last month and which will do so again on Tuesday as Roma travel to face Bayer Leverkusen.

The Giallorossi will instead look to Pjanic for inspiration in a game that may define their European campaign. Defeat to BATE Borisov in their previous Champions League fixture has left Roma needing a positive result in Germany to preserve any realistic ambition of making it out of Group E.

That is no small order against opponents who thrashed Lazio 3-0 at home in the qualifying stage, and the challenge has only been amplified by injuries elsewhere in the Italians’ attack. Besides Totti, both Edin Dzeko and Iago Falqué have been injured. Although close to recovery, each will likely start this game on the bench.

All of which serves to amplify Pjanic’s importance, both as this team’s joint-leading scorer, alongside Mohamed Salah, and as a man who can help less prolific team-mates to chip in – easing the burden on a makeshift forward line. His impact against Empoli was felt not only with the aforementioned free-kick but also the precise corner that Daniele De Rossi headed home three minutes later.

Pjanic is yet to show his best in the Champions League for Roma, failing to score or set up a goal as they crashed out at the group stage last season. Rome-based newspaper Il Messaggero lamented this week that he has sometimes appeared to be "operating on an alternating current." He has, however, shone in this competition before.

Perhaps the most memorable goal of Pjanic’s career to date arrived in a last-16 game for Lyon against Real Madrid in 2010. Leading 1-0 after the first leg at home, the Ligue 1 side soon fell behind at the Bernabéu to a goal from Cristiano Ronaldo. Many assumed they would crumble, but instead they stood firm. Pjanic, having pulled the strings for his team all day in midfield, scored in the 75th minute to give his team a 2-1 aggregate win.

Roma cannot be considered underdogs to the degree that Lyon were back then, but they have not won a game in the Champions League since their 5-1 rout of CSKA Moscow last September.

No wizardry is required to end this dry run, because the squad is talented enough to do better. What they need, more than anything, at this juncture, is to get the best from their calculating creator.