Key events
According to Uefa’s statistics Leverkusen had 34 attacks (not sure what one of those is for statistical purposes), and somehow converted them into 32 shots. Thirty-two shots! In a semi-final that they went into with a 2-0 aggregate lead! Roma had 12, and while they’ll feel terribly unfortunate, particularly because of the own goal that definitively turned the tie in Leverkusen’s favour, can have no complaints about the result.
This was a brilliantly entertaining game. Exciting, frustrating, astonishing, pull an adjective out of the big bucket of excited adjectives and chuck it at it.
Here’s Ben Fisher’s report on Aston Villa’s humbling at Olympiacos:
There is a graffiti mural in the north stand – home to the most ardent, impassioned Olympiakos supporters – that displays a mockup of Muhammad Ali standing over his opponent sandwiched between the words: “Piraeus means knock out!” And so it proved for Aston Villa, whose European adventure came to a joyless end in the Greek port.
Unai Emery, a four-time Europa League winner, will not get his hands on the Europa Conference League trophy this season and Villa’s hopes of a first major European trophy since lifting the European Cup in 1982 are over.
Much more here:
Leverkusen will play Atalanta in the final, the Italians having eased past Marseille 3-0 tonight, and 4-1 on aggregate.
That is a 49th game unbeaten. It’s beyond astonishing. Leverkusen immediately pull on the celebratory final-qualifying T-shirts they had ready to go.
Final score: Bayer Leverkusen 2-2 Roma (4-2 on aggregate)
90+9 mins: And that’s it! Roma get the ball onto the centre spot, but don’t get to restart – Leverkusen scored the goal that keeps that unbeaten run going with the final kick of the tie!
90+8 mins: That is astonishing! Stanisic is played down the right, cuts inside, and slides a perfect left-footed shot just inside the far post, just like that, like it’s nothing. Absolute scenes.
GOAL! Leverkusen’s unbeaten run goes on! Leverkusen 2-2 Roma!
90+7 mins: Astonishing! Madness! They’ve only gone and done it!
90+6 mins: Xhaka gets the ball on halfway, jogs about with it in no particular hurry, then wins a free kick.
90+5 mins: Leverkusen break, and Schick has a choice: does he take the ball into the corner and waste some time, or does he play a teammate clean through? His answer is: neither, try to chip the keeper from 50 yards. Goal kick.
90+4 mins: Another corner. Svilar stays back again.
90+3 mins: Leverkusen keep the ball for a while in Roma’s half, out on the right flank and with no hurry to move it infield. From which it seems they’re happy to lose the unbeaten record if it will help them win this tie.
90+2 mins: There will be seven minutes of stoppage time, perhaps a couple more with a fair wind.
90+1 mins: It’s all going on. Leverkusen bring on Stanisic and Kossounou and bring off Frimpong and Grimaldo, there’s some verbals with the Roma bench, and the referee comes over to tell everyone to calm down.
89 mins: What a chance for Leverkusen! They win a free-kick for offside on the edge of their area and must take it very quickly, because the TV cameras completely miss what happens next, but suddenly Frimpong is scampering into a completely empty Roma half! He cuts in from the right and shoots, but Svilar gets his angles right and saves (again)!
87 mins: Another chance for the home side, Frimpong shooting low and hard from the right of goal and Svilar saving with a foot.
86 mins: Well, here’s a question, sent by Marc Hämmerling just before the Leverkusen goal but still worth pondering: “I wonder: Should Leverkusen try not to score if they want to keep their unbeaten record while it is 0-2 and try to get into extratime? What I mean is: Let us suppose the tie ends 1-2. Then Leverkusen will go to the final but their record of being unbeaten is broken. If it is 0-2, then there will be extratime and then Leverkusen have another 30 minutes to get a 2-2.”
84 mins: Amazing that, for all the excellent attacking play we’ve seen tonight, the goals have come from two random crosses defenders generously converted into penalties, and a random cross a defender converted into a goal.
Own goal! Leverkusen 1-2 Roma (3-2 on aggregate)
82 mins: Just as it looks like Leverkusen will never score, Roma do it for them! They have a corner on the right, Svilar comes for it and misses, and it hits the astonished Mancini and bounces in!
81 mins: An infusion of Englishness as Tammy Abraham and Chris Smalling both come on, and Angelino and Pellegrini – perhaps suffering from a cold head – go off.
80 mins: Another miss: Hincapie’s cross is headed over the bar by Frimpong, who was well placed and should have done better.
78 mins: He eventually leaves the field, very slowly, holding an ice pack to his head. There could not be less wrong with him.
75 mins: Pellegrini goes down clutching his head and stays there, forcing the referee to stop the game. The physios come back on. Turns out the only thing that made contact with his head was the ball, and even that pretty gently.
74 mins: Leverkusen make their first change, taking off Hlosek and bringing on Patrik Schick.
73 mins: Big miss! Tah’s low 30-arder hits Adli, who from about 15 yards spins, shoots, and sends the ball just wide!
72 mins: Azmoun goes down, Roma’s physios come on, and eventually Edoardo Bove comes on to replace him.
68 mins: Leverkusen have been the better team by a decent margin, but they haven’t been good enough in front of goal. Svilar has made a few decent saves, but he’s not been called upon to do anything remarkable.
GOAL! Leverkusen 0-2 Roma (2-2 on aggregate)
Paredes scores again! It’s an excellent penalty, tucked just inside the left-hand post while the keeper goes the wrong way.
Roma have another penalty!
65 mins: It’s another slightly odd penalty, in that like the first the offence didn’t really stop Roma doing anything much, but it is a penalty!
64 mins: The referee has been invited to watch the incident at the VAR monitor. Hlosek’s right arm was in an unnatural position. I’ve got no idea why it was where it was, he certainly wasn’t seeking any kind of advantage, but the ball hit it.
63 mins: They break, ending with Hofmann shooting wildly from the edge of the area. But I think this is going to be called back for another penalty.
62 mins: Roma win a corner, and though Leverkusen clear lots of players in white think there was a handball involved.
61 mins: Leverkusen’s quickfire passing in and around the penalty area is superb, but sometimes they could probably get a shot away a little earlier. This move ends with Hlosek eventually shooting too close to Svilar, who saves.
59 mins: And then Leverkusen break – it’s three against two, and really should be converted, but it ends with Hofmann’s shot hitting an onrushing keeper.
58 mins: A long throw from the right for Roma is flicked on, and it takes an excellent volleyed clearance from Tapsoba to deny Roma a tap-in!
56 mins: Azmoun’s 20-yarder is saved and spilled by Kovar, but no Roma player has anticipated the error and Leverkusen clear.
52 mins: Adli’s left-footer whistles a foot wide with Svilar a spectator!
50 mins: The first big chance of the half, though, falls to Roma! Zalewski, who was switched from left to right in the first half because he was so miserably struggling to deal with Frimpong, passes infield to Cristante, who shifts onto his left foot and for a moment looks like he can just pass it into the far post, but a defender gets in the way of the shot!
47 mins: Leverkusen are bossing these opening minutes of the second half, and it doesn’t look like sitting back and defending a slender lead is their kind of thing.
46 mins: The players are out, and they’re right back into it!
“The old cliche has it that a striker who lacks confidence just needs one to go in off his glutes,” writes Kári Tulinius. “Roma just had the team equivalent of that happen, a somewhat absurd penalty has infused them with vim. The second half should be fun.” Well yes, just that. Fun as Leverkusen being excellent is, 2-1 is a more interesting scoreline at this point than 3-0.
OK, I’ve seen a replay, in slow motion and with a zoomed in bit, and Tah probably did briefly grab Azmoun, so it was a foul and thus a penalty. Danny Makkelie, I apologise for doubting you.
The subplot here is that both Leverkusen centre-backs have now been booked, as have two Roma defenders and their central midfielder. There seems a decent chance of a red card happening at some point.
Half time: Leverkusen 0-1 Roma (2-1 on aggregate)
45+4 mins: A relatively calm few minutes to end the half. It’s been a wildly entertaining and occasionally just wild 45 minutes, and it ends with a wildly unlikely scoreline.
45+1 mins: There’s going to be four minutes of stoppage time, give or take.
45 mins: A brilliant ball in from the right and Roma nearly have a second, but under pressure Tapsoba turns it behind, rather than into, the goal!
GOAL! Roma 1-0 Leverkusen (Paredes, 43 mins) – 2-1 on aggregate
Paredes blasts it down the middle, as Kovar dives out the way. This scoreline, and the penalty award that led to it, is an affront to all sporting decency.
42 mins: That is super harsh. Tah is booked, which is really ludicrous. He vaguely touched someone who wouldn’t have got anywhere near the ball.