Roma Take Small Lead In Europa League Semi With Leverkusen

Edoardo Bove fired Roma to a 1-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen in a tight first leg of their Europa League semi-final on Thursday. Bove scored the only goal of the game in the 63rd minute at the Stadio Olimpico, allowing Jose Mourinho's side to take a slender lead into next week's second leg in Germany. The win gives Mourinho the chance to reach his second European final in as many years as Roma coach after winning the Europa Conference League last season. "It's all down to the boys tonight who played with desire and the right mentality," Mourinho said to Sky Sport.

"I have put in a lot of miles over the course of my career but even I really felt the support of the fans tonight and the boys responded with the desire to make them happy."

Roma took the win despite having a host of players either out or barely fit to play, with stars Paulo Dybala and Georginio Wijnaldum only coming on in the final 15 minutes to help out an exhausted, largely second-string team.

"Roma were a bit more dangerous in the second half, but we had the feeling that we could beat them in their own backyard," said Leverkusen goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky.

"It's not the best result for us but it could have been worse."

- Battling Roma -

A turgid first half had little in the way of goalmouth incident, with each team having one good opportunity each.

First Florian Wirtz shot a very presentable chance just wide in the seventh minute after exchanging passes with Adam Hlozek on the edge of the penalty area.

But it was Roma who were wondering how they didn't open the scoring 12 minutes later when Roger Ibanez's header from a Lorenzo Pellegrini free-kick was well-saved by Hradecky.

And Tammy Abraham failed to tap in from the rebound, leaving the home fans