AS Roma beat Bayer Leverkusen 3-2 in a thrilling game at the Stadio Olimpico in Wednesday's Champions League action.

The Germans went behind after only two minutes and were two goals down before the half hour mark as Roma perfectly exposed their fragile back four.

However, Leverkusen fought back brilliantly and were on level terms without six minutes of the restart.

Unfortunately though, all their hard work was to be undone with just over 10 minutes to go when their captain, Ömer Toprak conceded a penalty and was sent off for denying the opposition a clear goal-scoring opportunity.

Miralem Pjanic stepped up to the mark and converted from the spot, giving his side a win that they deserved, but one that they had made unnecessarily difficult for themselves to get.

Fast start by Roma puts them in control

It was only a few seconds into the game when the crowd saw the first goal as Edin Dzeko, a former Bundesliga player for VfL Wolfsburg, played a good pass to Mohammed Salah on the counter. The Egyptian international used his pace to make his way towards Bernd Leno and finished well to make it 1-0 inside two minutes.

Leverkusen struggled to get into the game and create goal scoring opportunities. The first real action towards Wojcech Szczesny's goal was a cross by Hakan Calhanoglu following a free kick, which got to Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, who could not quite stop the ball and failed to direct it towards the goal.

In the following minutes, Roma became more dominant and started to create dangerous counter attacks. Still, they all lacked of precision and concentration meaning the score stayed 1-0 until the 29th minute where, after a miserable pass by Jonathan Tah in the offensive half, Belgian international Radja Nainggolan spotted Dzeko's run and played a great pass. It reached the Bosnian who only had Leno to beat as he scored the second goal of the evening.

In the following quarter of an hour until half-time, the Werkself were lucky not to concede more goals as Dzeko had another great opportunity only a few minutes after the goal, but his shot after a very fast counter attack went high and wide.

Leverkusen tried to create some opportunities, but they always failed because for some reason, nobody in the team managed to play a good pass, manage the team or at least manage a decent shot from a good position.

Leverkusen emulate Roma's fast start in second half

When both teams came back on the pitch and the second half started, the crowd had the impression Leverkusen's team had completely changed. Roger Schmidt's men were a lot more aggressive, were faster and played better passes. Only a few seconds into the second half, Karim Bellarabi, a half time substitute, played a good pass to Admir Mehmedi after dribbling past Kostas Manolas. There, the Switzerland international had no problems in halving the deficit.

Roma seemed to be a bit intimidated by that early goal for Leverkusen, wherefore Bayer 04 had another opportunity - after a good pass by Bellarabi, again, Chicharito scored the equaliser with a great finish past Wojciech Szczesny.

Italians respond with comeback of their own to win

In the following minutes, one would get the impression that now it was Leverkusen's game to win, but Roma re-gained their self-assurance and fought themselves back into it instead.

In the 79th minute, Roma played a good attack and at the end, when Salah was ready to convert from very short distance after Daniele De Rossi's shot deflected into his path, Ömer Toprak decided not to let the Chelsea loanee score but to push him and concede a penalty, as well as receiving a red card.

Pjanic took charge from the spot and scored as his effort squeezed under Leno, who dived the right way.

Even though Leverkusen tried to go for the equaliser, it was hard with one man down. Despite four minutes of stoppage and a very defensive Roma, they did not manage to score another leveller, or create any real chances for that matter.

Leverkusen are now in third place in Group E with two games to play. Roma sit in second.

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