Eusebio Di Francesco has urged his Roma players to "raise the bar against Liverpool" as they attempt to pull off another Champions League miracle on home soil.
A month on from producing one of the greatest comebacks in the competition's history, coming from three goals down to beat Barcelona 4-4 on away goals, the Giallorossi must do it all over again.
Liverpool take a 5-2 advantage into Wednesday night's semi-final second leg at the Stadio Olimpico, where Roma have yet to concede in Europe this term, and Di Francesco is confident that another upset is on the cards with an improved performance from his players.
"In terms of the Barcelona match, I would do a copy and paste like you would on Microsoft Word word but in the minds of the player and physically, in order to compete against Liverpool, we need to raise the bar against Liverpool with physical effort," he told reporters on the eve of the match. "Then comes attitude, approach to the game and the fact we need to try and score an early goal and to have the fans behind us even more.
"From a motivational point of view, we have the desire to complete this comeback and put everything on the pitch and try and do something great and massive. If you want to score goals you cannot sit back. You cannot drop deep. We have to accept the risk of conceding on the counter attack but we have to try and limit it as much as possible. We need to score three goals. We need to make something clear.
"We are about to play a Champions League semi-final semi-final in front of 70,000. What, you expect us to sit back? We expect a fighting team a team who can put everything on the pitch. I expect this to happen. We made something special against Barcelona. It is a massive achievement for the club but I don't like to settle and be complacent. We have to try and to do our best.
"Our ambition is to go to Kiev and we must believe we can make it. However, I am trying to prepare for this match like any other match. I am very satisfied with what we have done so far but we need to raise the bar even more. I will try to make the players aware that we can make something big."
Liverpool have scored more goals than any other side in this season's Champions League, racking up 38 in all.
Daniel Lewis
