An exercise in profligacy: How Roma wasted a chance to pull off the impossible

"All managers are hard to please," said Luciano Spalletti on the eve of Roma’s visit to the Bernabeu. "But I’m asking my lads for the impossible."

How else to frame the Giallorossi’s task on Tuesday night? Trailing 2-0 from the first leg, Roma needed to beat Real Madrid by an identical scoreline just to force extra-time. To make it through to the Champions League quarter-finals, the Italians would have to stick the ball in the net at least three times. This against an opponent who had kept clean sheets in five out of six games so far in this tournament.

Related: Real Madrid punishes wasteful Roma to punch quarter-final ticket

That is why Spalletti told his players not to even think about what it would take to win the tie. In fact, he expressly forbade it. "Anybody who goes around worrying that we need a goalfest is not going to play," he said. "I won’t even let them train."

Spalletti is not in the business of denying reality. He simply knew that it would do his players no favours to dwell on the scale of the challenge that lay ahead of them. Instead, he encouraged them to focus on a more achievable objective: to score the first goal in Madrid. Do that, he said, and the psychology of this tie would tilt in their favour.

His analysis was spot on.

Madrid ought to have been supremely confident of progressing, but instead the nervousness was palpable. Where Roma played with the freedom of a side with nothing to lose, the hosts were anxious and hurried. The Bernabeu crowd whistled with each pass that went astray.

What did they have to be afraid of? Only twice in Champions League history had a team failed to progress after winning a first leg away from home in the knock-out phase. On both occasions, the advantage had only been a single goal.

Madrid, though, came perilously close to crashing out under identical circumstances last February. After beating Schalke 2-0 at the Veltins-Arena, Los Merengues were beaten 4-3 by the same opponents in the return game. One more goal would have sent their opponents through.

A more recent setback, furthermore, had already put Madrid’s supporters on edge. The 1-0 home defeat to neighbours Atletico had left Zinedine Zidane’s team third in the table and 12 points off the pace set by league leader Barcelona.

Expelled from the Copa del Rey for fielding an ineligible player against Cadiz, Los Blancos had no other trophy to aim for but the Champions League. And they hardly looked like a team capable of winning that during the early going against Roma.

The half-time statisics showed that Madrid had attempted 18 shots in 45 minutes. Only one of those, though, had constituted a real scoring opportunity - Wojciech Szczesny rushing out sharply to save at the feet of Cristiano Ronaldo.

By contrast, Roma had blown at least two clear-cut chances. First Edin Dzeko fired wide of the near post after Stephan El Shaarawy’s dummy allowed a Mohamed Salah pass to find him in all kinds of space on the left of the Madrid penalty area. Then Salah fluffed his lines after being played in by Dzeko on the opposite side.

It was a similar story at the start of the second half. Salah fluffed Roma’s best chance of the night in the 50th minute, failing to keep his shot on target from 12 yards after Dzeko again sent him clean through. Alessandro Florenzi and Kostas Manolas at least obliged Keylor Navas to make saves with close-range efforts in the minutes that followed.

Was it nerves, or only bad luck that kept Roma from scoring? It was hard to explain how a group that has averaged more than three goals per game during a seven-match domestic winning streak could appear quite so profligate.

Spalletti had been bold with his tactics, acknowledging the need to score by fielding all four of Dzeko, Salah, El Shaarawy and Diego Perotti at the top of his 4-2-3-1. With Miralem Pjanic hardly a defensive-minded presence in the bank of two behind them, this set-up would inevitably allow Madrid space in which to work rapid counters.

And yet it was not until the 64th minute, after Pjanic had been replaced by William Vainqueur that Madrid finally broke the deadlock. Ronaldo’s close-range finish killed Roma’s hopes at a stroke. The Bernabeu roared more with relief than excitement. Within moments, James Rodriguez added a second.

Not even a man as implacable as Spalletti could expect a victory from here. His introduction of Francesco Totti as a substitute felt less like a final throw of the dice than a romantic gesture. The Roma captain turned down the chance to play for Madrid in his younger years, preferring to stay with his childhood club. The Bernabeu granted him a standing ovation.

Related - VIDEO: Real Madrid fans greet Totti's entrance with rousing ovation

Three months earlier, Roma had been booed off by their own fans after scraping through to the group stage with a 0-0 draw at home to BATE Borisov. It was the first time in five years that they had reached the knock-out stage of this competition, but supporters were furious with a performance lacking in courage or conviction.

Spalletti’s team displayed both traits in abundance on Tuesday. A 4-0 aggregate defeat, on the surface, might not offer much encouragement that this team is getting closer to competing with the elite clubs in Europe. But the only gulf that existed between Roma and Real Madrid on Tuesday, came in the quality of their finishing.