They shouldn't be here: not in the Champions League, certainly not in the last four. For all Roma's rich reputation, it has little to do with Europe's greatest prize.
Nobody envisaged this. When they were drawn in a group with Atletico Madrid and Chelsea, it was assumed Roma would fall away and be left to concentrate on the Europa League after Christmas. How wrong that assumption proved to be.
Roma sustained blows in the first half of the competition, rode them and made it to the last 16, knocking Shakhtar Donetsk out on away goals and then — most spectacularly of all — doing the same to Barcelona in the quarter-finals.