Afterwards, Baroni insists the home team's plastic pitch made the difference.

He said, “They had speed in their exchanges because of the artificial pitch. I believe that the second leg will be a different game and qualification is still open.

“They are a fresh, brilliant team. We will rebalance at the Olimpico in the second leg, and we believe that we can still secure qualification. We will have to press higher on their key players, we will put more pressure on them. 

“Now, we have to regain our energy. We will prepare for this match well, we’ll give it our full strength."

He added, “We don’t need to appeal to our fans. We all came here together, we have an important derby and then the second leg. We will go up against them in the best possible way.”