Roma hammer Brighton to put one foot in Europa League last eight

ROME: Roma put one foot in the quarter-finals of the Europa League on Thursday (Mar 7) after hammering Brighton 4-0 as Daniele De Rossi dominated his good friend Roberto De Zerbi.

First-half goals from star strike pairing Paulo Dybala and Romelu Lukaku gave Roma the platform for a convincing last 16, first-leg win over their Premier League opponents at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.

Gianluca Mancini and Bryan Cristante completed the rout as Roma continued to love life after Jose Mourinho and with their former captain De Rossi, who has turned his boyhood club's season around in less than two months.

A thumping eighth win in 10 matches for De Rossi since replacing Mourinho in January has Roma all-but in the last eight before next week's second leg in England.

"All teams have hard periods, it's not like I've done anything special," said De Rossi to Sky Sport.

"I'm very happy but they're really good players. They're winning matches that they should be winning... It's a good team and it wins matches, I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary."

De Rossi's expansive style of play is inspired by De Zerbi, and both men are also close friends to the point that their daughters meet in London to watch Roma matches.

They will have been impressed with what Roma served up in front of their raucous support, who made a huge racket while their team racked up the goals in a way that would have been almost unthinkable under Mourinho.

"It's difficult to explain. He's a coach with very good ideas, he's surprised me. He's also a very positive person who helps the team to believe in itself," said Mile Svilar to Sky.

Brighton are in their first-ever European knockout tie and their inexperience showed against Roma who have gone deep in both the Europa and