Daniele de Rossi hailed his Roma teammates after last night's stunning 2-1 victory at Real Madrid.

"We know that over a season with so many games you can have a hiccup like we did at Siena, but the real Roma is the one we saw in Madrid," said the Italy midfielder.

"The Manchester defeat was a one-off and we hope it is impossible for it to ever happen again. We have to play our game and I think we did better in the first leg than the second because we had to fight back from a goal down.

"It wasn't easy to come here with a packed out stadium and face a club of such history, but if you start thinking about that you'll do nothing, so we focused only on ourselves."

He added: "We are aware that we are a good squad, as we have reached the final eight for two years running. There is a long road to Moscow, but we believe and this win will give us even more faith."

They are also only six points adrift of the Serie A leadership and in the final four of the Coppa Italia.

"The Coppa Italia may be a smaller trophy, but we are in the semi-finals and would be idiots to give up at this stage."