Something must give in Rome

The Stadio Olimpico welcomes back AS Roma on Wednesday with the Italian champions still cock-a-hoop following their 5-1 thrashing of S.S. Lazio in the stadium last weekend. They are one of five teams still unbeaten in the second group stage of the UEFA Champions League as are Galatasaray SK, their opponents on Matchday 11.

Tight section
Group B is a tight section with just three points separating the top and bottom teams. Roma will be bidding for their second successive victory to guarantee their place in the quarter-finals while Galatasaray, after four successive draws, will be looking to accelerate their own qualifying claims and keep alive their hopes of emulating last season's achievement of reaching the last eight.

Unbeaten since September
Roma's 3-0 win over FC Barcelona on Matchday 10 was their first win in six UEFA Champions League matches and brought to an end a run of five successive draws. It also put them on top of the group, but things would have been a lot different had Emerson not struck an injury-time equaliser in Turkey in the opening fixture of the second group stage. That helped preserve an unbeaten run in the competition that has endured since the home defeat by Real Madrid CF on 11 September and the Italian champions also boast the joint-second best defensive record with seven goals against from ten games played.

Montella making history
Roma's triumph over Lazio extended their win advantage in Rome derbies to 52-42 with 54 draws. It was the third time Roma had scored five times in this fixture and Vincenzo Montella, who scored the club's 250th goal in European competition against Barcelona the previous week, became the first player to score four times in the fixture. His hat-trick arrived before the 37th minute and his fourth goal, in the 64th minute, preceded Francesco Totti's late effort. Gabriel Batistuta took no part in the game as he was being saved for this week's UEFA Champions League action.

'We can match any team'
"I am completely satisfied," said Fabio Capello afterwards. "This is the way every coach hopes his team will play. We have proved in Madrid and Barcelona that we can match any team in the world. But I am sure that the remaining games in the Serie A title race will be difficult. We are on top of the table at the moment but Inter and Juventus are also doing very well." The previous week Roma had extended their unbeaten run in a 1-1 draw at US Lecce with Vincent Candela scoring in the first half.
 
No wins in Italy
Galatasaray have never won in Italy, eight visits resulting in three draws and five defeats. This is their second visit to the Italian capital this season and they will want to improve on the performance which saw Lazio beat them 1-0 on 24 October. Since they have remained unbeaten in the Champions League, winning at home to PSV Eindhoven before drawing each of their four games in Group B. For this game Capone, Emre Asik and Ümit Karan are available again after completing their suspensions.

Mixed fortunes for Galatasaray
After the 1-1 draw with Liverpool FC two weeks ago, Mircea Lucescu's side have experienced mixed fortunes in the Turkish championship, first losing 2-0 away to Göztepe. With five absentees - Sergen Yalçin , Murat Sözkesen, Bülent Akin, Sébastien Perez  and the suspended Batista - Lucescu's team looked sluggish and failed to take control of the game. Lucescu said:  "We started the game with pressure but my players didn't show enough effort and they wasted the scoring positions we got into. The goals that Hasan [Sas] and Arif [Erdem] missed took us out of the game. We didn't have the ability to break down our opponents' tight defence."

Derby success
Last Saturday there was a big improvement when Galatasaray picked up three valuable points in the Istanbul derby with Besiktas JK to leave themselves three points clear of their neighbours at the top of the table. Andrés Fleurquin earned the victory in the 68th minute with the only goal of the game and his second for the club. Lucescu was forced to watch the game from the stand after receiving a four-week ban from the Turkish Football Federation for his "pitch invasion", during the match against Gençlerbirligi SK.