Roma 3–4 Real Madrid: the comeback that doesn't settle everything

In the 82nd minute, the scoreboard at the Stadio Olimpico still read 3–1 to Roma. Eight minutes later, Antonio Rüdiger converted an Arda Güler corner from inside the six-yard box and Real Madrid led 4–3. In between, Carlos Espí and Endrick had also scored, from a corner or in the scramble that followed. Three goals in seven minutes: on Wednesday 14 October, in the second round of the league phase, Madrid turned around a game that had slipped away from them for an hour.

The finish was spectacular. The rest of Madrid's night was far less so. For close to an hour, Real neither contained Roma's attacks nor regularly troubled Gollini. They then changed shape, created chance after chance and punished a defence that no longer knew how to protect its box. To talk only of character would be to miss the point: Madrid won after fixing some of their faults, not because of them.

Interactive module: replay Roma–Real Madrid minute by minute

Over the whole match, Madrid had more shots: sixteen attempts to fourteen, eight on target to seven. This was not, then, a win built on four miracle balls after total Roman domination. Nor was it the win of a team in control of its task.

The match has to be split in two to be understood. Before the 59th minute, Roma had ten shots, six of them on target, against four shots and just one on target for Madrid. After that, the balance flipped: twelve shots and seven on target for Real, four and one for Roma. The 59th minute is when Madrid made their double substitution.

That coincidence is not enough to credit everything to the substitutes. It does show, however, that Real's comeback rested on a very real threat. Roma did not simply lose three duels at the death: they were already no longer producing the same danger.

Gian Piero Gasperini's side grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck. Every lost ball was contested at once, every first Madrid pass harried. In the 20th minute, Matías Soulé set up Marten de Roon, who opened the scoring at the end of a move that started with a botched build-up from Aurélien Tchouaméni.

The response came five minutes later. Yan Diomande headed the ball back across for Kylian Mbappé, who equalised. A priceless flash of individual quality, yet one that settled nothing else: at 1–1, Madrid's collective problems were still there.

The starting 4–2–3–1 lined up plenty of talent up front, with Mbappé, Vinícius, Diomande and Jude Bellingham. But piling up forwards is not enough to bring the ball out cleanly or to protect what lies behind. The Tchouaméni–Valverde pairing struggled to link possession together, and the long balls too often stopped several players from pushing up together.

The second half widened the gap. In the 51st minute, a failed backheel from Vinícius launched the Roma attack: Rodrigo Mora found Donyell Malen, 2–1. Six minutes later, Soulé set up Malen again, 3–1. Two assists for the Argentine, a brace for the Dutchman: Roma were the better side, and that had nothing to do with the prestige of the names opposite.

José Mourinho reacted in the 59th minute. Endrick replaced Vinícius, Güler came on for Denzel Dumfries and Federico Valverde dropped back to right-back. Bernardo Silva took over from Tchouaméni in the 70th, then Carlos Espí and Álvaro Carreras replaced Diomande and Marc Cucurella in the 78th.

The changes gave Real other ways to attack. Güler brought a quality of passing that had been missing, Endrick a threat down the right and in the box, Bernardo one more player to sustain the passing sequences. Madrid could finally build their attacks instead of looking straight away for the decisive blow.

The reaction came before the goals. Gollini turned away two Mbappé efforts, in the 62nd and then the 66th minute, and a goal from the Frenchman was ruled out for offside in the 68th. The comeback did not come out of nowhere: it had been brewing for twenty minutes.

Mourinho's credit is to have turned around a game that was getting away from him. His responsibility is to have started it with such a fragile set-up. The coaching fixed the plan; the victory does not, after the fact, turn that plan into a good idea.

From the 59th minute onwards, Roma conceded six corners without winning a single one. In the closing sequences, they could no longer clear the danger.

In the 83rd minute, Gollini kept out an Endrick header, but Espí followed up and scored from point-blank range: 3–2. In the 85th, Endrick equalised with a header from a Güler corner. In the 90th, Rüdiger converted another delivery from the Turkish player inside the six-yard box. Three goals from the four corners awarded between the 82nd and the 90th minute: the repetition condemns Roma's defensive organisation.

This was not a matter of bad luck. After 3–2, Roma knew that every set piece would be decisive. They cracked a second time, then a third, in the protection of the goal, in the duels and on the loose balls in the box. Without being able to establish each player's responsibility on every action, we will not single out one guilty defender.

Gasperini had taken off Soulé and Gianluca Mancini in the 63rd, then Mario Hermoso in the 81st. His team lost some of its threat and refreshed its defence just before the tipping point. Those choices raise questions without being enough to explain the defeat. With a two-goal lead, Roma had to do far better with what they had left.

Mbappé finished with one goal and four shots, all on target. His equaliser kept Real in the game, and his efforts after the break fed the pressure. It would be wrong to erase him from this victory, and just as wrong to credit him with the comeback: neither the three decisive goals nor the last two assists were his.

For Vinícius, the evening was a harsh one. No shots, a costly loss of the ball before 2–1 and a substitution in the 59th minute. His pass to Bellingham in first-half stoppage time rules out saying he created nothing, but it does not make up for the rest. A player of his standing must weigh more, and choose better when his team is struggling to keep the ball.

Top: Arda Güler, the decisive substitution. Two assists, the corner for 3–2 and an immediate influence on Madrid's play.

Top: Donyell Malen, Roma's finisher. Two goals, three shots on target from four. His team's defeat takes nothing away from such a productive evening.

Top: Endrick, the arrival that changed the danger. Two shots, two on target: the header kept out before Espí's goal, then the one for the equaliser.

Flop: Vinícius Júnior. No shots and a botched backheel before 2–1. Real became more dangerous after he went off. That verdict judges one evening, not a career.

Flop: Aurélien Tchouaméni. His botched build-up preceded the opening goal, and the midfield did not provide the expected protection. His service for Mbappé in the 66th is not enough to save his first hour.

Flop: Denzel Dumfries. Struggling with balls in behind and of little influence going forward, he went off in the 59th. His team-mates covered him poorly, but Real needed to change that side of the pitch.