AS Roma hoping to make the best of unexpected place

ROME, Sep 7 (Reuters) AS Roma finished fifth in Serie A last season, but were lifted up to second and awarded a place in the Champions League following the judgements in the match-fixing scandal.

Having squeezed back into Europe's top club competition by the back door, the club will want to leave a better impression than the last time they competed in it two years ago.

Roma's Champions League campaign in 2004-05 got off to the worst possible start.

A bad-tempered match with Dynamo Kiev at the Olympic stadium ended at halftime with Swedish referee Anders Frisk leaving the pitch with blood gushing from a wound in his head after being hit by an object thrown from the stands.

Roma were punished with an automatic 3-0 defeat, played their remaining home games behind closed doors and finished bottom of their group with one point.

This year, by a twist of fate, they will again open their campaign at the Olympic Stadium against a Ukrainian club, Shakhtar Donetsk, before going on to face Greek side Olympiakos Piraeus and Valencia of Spain.

The group seems to offer Roma a good chance of reaching the knockout phase for the first time but they could pay for the late start of the domestic season, particularly in their first match.

Shakhtar's league season started in July and its players will be sharp and fully match fit.

Roma, on the other hand, come into the game just three days after playing their first Serie A match.

As usual, their fans will expect captain Francesco Totti to produce something special.

The 29-year-old striker, who cut an unimpressive figure in Italy's march to World Cup title, recently announced he had decided to take a sabbatical from the national team until 2007 and should be fully focused on leading his club.

The closed-season arrival of Serbian striker Mirko Vucinic has solved Roma's lack of a centreforward, while in midfield the other big new signing, David Pizarro, will be hoping to reproduce the vision that made him a focal point of the Udinese side that finished fourth in Serie A in 2005.

The key figure in Roma's campaign this season, however, could be their coach Luciano Spalletti.

The 47-year-old, who is considered one of Italy's up-and-coming coaches, took a big gamble in leaving Udinese at the start of last season to take charge of Roma.

From a squad still in turmoil a year after Fabio Capello's departure for Juventus, he constructed a side that played some of the most attractive football in Italy and set a new Serie A record of 11 consecutive victories on the way.

REUTERS PDS BST1856