Porto have made it to the UEFA Champions League group stages for the 6 successive season after claiming a convincing 4-1 aggregate victory over As.Roma.
Roma manager Rudi Garcia says that he does not regret the dropped two points against Sampdoria. Instead, he has looked at the positives and says that this draw has helped the club overcome the 7-1 thrashing at the hands of Bayern Munich a few days ago.
Roma suffered this heavy defeat in the Champions League and questions have been asked about their ability to sustain the title challenge amongst the Juventus juggernaut. Garcia saw his team suffered yet more dropped points in the league to move further behind Juventus, but he sees this as a positive.
It looks like Roma will be finishing yet another season without a trophy to celebrate after they were knocked out of the Coppa Italia 5-3 on aggregate against Napoli. This coupled with their significant points difference between them and title rivals Juventus mean that it will be a disappointing season for the club from the capital.
However, manager Rudi Garcia has widely transformed the club by making them title contenders at a time when they were looking rank outsiders to finish in the top three. He arrived at the club only in the summer and signed a contract until 2015.
Roma's attacking playmaker Miralem Pjanic has said that Champions League football is one of the main aims for Roma this season. After a few years of struggling in the Italian Serie A, Roma seem to be back where they belong. The presence of new owners has provided them with the necessary impetus both in terms of the moral and also in terms of the cash to take on the big teams like Juventus, AC Milan, and Inter Milan.
Even though they had a poor start to the season, they have recovered since then. One of the main reasons for the poor start to the season has been the high level of a number of new players. One of them has been Miralem Pjanic.
