After finally making it to the UEFA Europa League finals by drawing their final league match against Bayer Leverkusen in the second leg of the semifinals at Bay Arena, Germany, the jubilant AS Roma went up against Salernitana on Monday (22.05.2023) in their Serie A encounter. The result of the match saw both teams scoring two goals each to draw the game 2-2 at Stadio Olimpico.
Both teams scored back-and-forth goals throughout the match that saw them ultimately settle with a draw. Stephan El Shaarawy and Nemanja Matic scored for AS Roma while the same was done by Antoni Candreva and Boulaye Dia for Salernitana. The opening goal of the match came in the 12th minute when midfielder Candreva sent the ball into the Roma nets following a sublime cross from Lassana Coulibaly. This turned out to be the only goal to be scored in the first half, which saw Salernitana leading 1-0 at half time.
Two minutes into the second half, AS Roma finally opened their account with a spectacular equalizer from Stephan El Shaarawy, bringing them back into the match. However, the leveled scoreline did not last long enough as Boulaye Dia scored the second goal for Salernitana from a cross from Krzysztof Piatek to push the team 2-1 ahead in the 54th minute.
The competition remained tense throughout the remainder of the second half and AS Roma made extra efforts to get the equalizer while Salernitana just focused on maintaining ball possession and preventing the opponents from scoring. However, Roma bounced back just in time as Nemanja Matic was able to break through and get the much needed goal. The half-time substitute was able to convert a sharp corner to get the scores leveled again in the 83rd minute. With seven minutes still remaining in the clock, both teams made desperate attempts to get the winning goal, but that was not to happen as the referee blew the whistle, signaling the end and a 2-2 draw for both teams.
Now two back-to-back draws have put AS Roma’s hopes of making it clean into the Champions League in jeopardy. They are still not out of it and can still qualify for the Champions League if they can manage to defeat Sevilla in the Europa League final to be held on 31st May. This may turn out to be an uphill task as Roma would be playing without striker Paulo Dybala, who is still recovering from his ankle injury.
