Roma target Champions League

Roma director Walter Sabatini has stated the club’s number one target is to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

Luis Enrique’s side – who sit seventh on the table – slipped up at Siena in their last fixture but have improved after a slow start to the season.

The league winners and runners-up in the Serie A automatically qualify for the Champions League, with the third-placed side entering the qualifiers.

That means Roma have some work to do if they want to qualify for Europe’s premier club competition next term, starting with a home clash against Parma on Sunday.

“Winning against Parma will put us back in the race for the Champions League,” Sabatini told Il Corriere dello Sport.

“Roma must aim high, there is no doubt. If we had left Siena with the three points we would already be there to fight.”

“But all is not lost and we will not give up, the Champions League is the goal for which we will fight until the end.”

Enrique – who represented Real Madrid and Barcelona in his playing career – has implemented a new style of football at the club, mirroring that of the Catalan giants.

And Sabatini believes that the new philosophy must remain, even if poor results are suffered.

“We must always aspire to play our new brand of football. In this sense for me it has already been achieved, because Roma has an exclusive game; in Italy it is definitely unique,” he said.

“The defeats we suffer are, and always will be, very painful. But we must not allow a loss to make us lose sight of the way.”