In Jose Mourinho’s first competitive game in charge, the ‘Special one’ takes a 1 goal advantage going into the 2nd Leg in Rome. So what happened?

The first half action began with Roma’s full-backs so concentrated on staying in line with the center-backs that Roma just ended up defending flat, without any pressure on Trabzonspor as the Turks dominated the first 15 minutes of play. Trabzonspor had too much time and space to pick their through-balls but couldn’t find the right one, so then Roma started getting into the game a bit more.

The last move of the half was Trabzonspor trying to work a 1-2 around Rick Karsdorp on the flank, but the move was ruled out for offside before the referee blew the whistle to end the half. All in all, you’d have to say the Turkish side had edged the half, but neither side had really shown their full hand in this two-legged tie just yet.

In the second half, after dispossessing Anastasios “Tasos” Bakasetas near the halfway line, Roma sprang a devastating counter-attack by working the ball out on the left flank to the feet of Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Trabzonspor simply couldn’t recover in time and were left to watch helplessly as Mikitaryan sent in a long, searching cross all the way to the far side that found Lorenzo Pellegrini in plenty of space inside the penalty area to score in the 55th minute.

Pellegrini tucked the ball home from close range to give Roma the 1-0 lead on the night, with just over half an hour left to play. Two further goals came in that 30 minutes. First Trabszonspor pulled one back with a header on the 64th minute by Andreas Cornelius, but the winner was scored in the 81st minute by Eldor Shomurodov to make Mourinho a relatively happy man, who will be playing the 2nd leg at home with a 1 goal advantage.