With Liverpool and AS Roma set to kick off their Champions League semi-final at Anfield on Tuesday night, guest writer Scott Fleming analyses the Italians' evolution under new management this term…

1984, 2001, 2002, 2018.

Liverpool aren’t exactly unfamiliar with AS Roma, having met – and defeated – the Italians three times before in continental competition.

But the Roma side that visits Anfield for Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg is a very different proposition to Nils Liedholm’s class of ’84, Fabio Capello’s 2001-02 vintage, and to the Mohamed Salah-inspired incarnation that racked up a club record points haul but still finished second to Juventus in Serie A last season.

Since then, positions of power have changed hands and the squad has been transformed. Coach Luciano Spalletti and sporting director Walter Sabatini both joined Inter Milan last summer and were replaced by Eusebio Di Francesco and Monchi respectively.

Di Francesco turned out for Roma as a midfielder between 1997 and 2001 but made his name in management with the remarkable work he did at Sassuolo, a small club from a small town in the Emilia-Romagna region who were playing in the Italian equivalent of League One this time 10 years ago but became established in the top flight and even enjoyed a Europa League campaign under the guidance of ‘EDF’.

In Italian football, the role of the sporting director is almost as important as that of the coach, hence why the capture of Monchi was such a coup. Full name Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo, the former goalkeeper is renowned for launching the likes of Dani Alves and Ivan Rakitic into stardom in his time at Sevilla.

Both men certainly had a lot of work on their hands when they arrived in the Eternal City. Monchi negotiated the sales of Salah, Leandro Paredes and Antonio Rudiger to Liverpool, Zenit St Petersburg and Chelsea respectively before using his scouting nous to bring in a host of replacements from the Netherlands, Turkey and Di Francesco’s old haunt Sassuolo.

Meanwhile, the coach’s biggest challenge was to fill the void left by his former teammate Francesco Totti, the Roma legend who retired and became one of the club’s directors last May after 25 years’ service at the Stadio Olimpico.

I Giallorossi (Yellow and Reds) didn’t start the season in blistering form, with some in Italy questioning Di Francesco’s insistence on his preferred 4-3-3 system and whether it got the best out of Radja Nainggolan, the Belgian midfielder who netted 14 goals in all competitions last season when playing alongside Salah as the ‘two’ in Spalletti’s 3-4-2-1.

But then they clicked into gear in a big way, going on a run of 11 wins in 13 games between September and November. As of now, much like Jürgen Klopp’s Reds, Roma are on course to secure another season’s participation in the Champions League, although the top-four battle is much tighter in Italy than it is in England, with only one point separating Roma, Lazio and Inter in third, fourth and fifth.

And they have already really distinguished themselves in this year’s competition, going on a journey to the last four that has been just as full of drama and romance as Liverpool’s.

Roma defied expectations from the very start, finishing top of a classic ‘group of death’ that featured Chelsea and Atletico Madrid, beating the then-English champions 3-0 along the way.

In the last 16, they found themselves 2-1 down to an underrated Shakhtar Donetsk side but turned it around with an Edin Dzeko winner and a gritty second-leg showing in Rome. Then there’s the miracle against Barcelona. Trailing 4-1 after the quarter-final first leg at Camp Nou, Di Francesco set his team up in a 3-4-2-1 system for the return tie – an extremely bold move.

The tactician was turning his back on a formation he’d not only played for most of the season, but for most of his career, the dynamic 4-3-3 he learnt from mentor Zdenek Zeman, an enigmatic, chain-smoking Czech who has coached Roma twice and is known for playing some of the most attacking football ever seen in Europe’s major leagues.

“The best coach I ever worked with in terms of attacking football was Zdenek Zeman,” said Di Francesco in a recent UEFA.com interview. “I learned the most from him and over time he left me with a particular philosophy.”

The switch also meant Di Francesco putting his trust in the likes of back-up defender Juan Jesus and young striker Patrik Schick, who was making his very first Champions League appearance. Suffice to say, it worked, goals from Dzeko, Daniele De Rossi and Kostas Manolas turning the tie on its head on an unforgettable night at the Olimpico earlier this month.

It was an incredible achievement not just in the context of the tie, but in the wider context of a lean era for Italian clubs in Europe. Excluding Juventus, Roma are only the second Serie A side to reach the Champions League semi-finals in the last 11 years.

The question now becomes: what approach will Di Francesco adopt to try and get the better of Klopp, Salah and co? He will surely have watched with interest the second leg of Liverpool’s quarter-final against Manchester City, where Pep Guardiola had a certain amount of early success with three at the back before being picked off by the Reds’ quick attackers at the other end. The 3-4-2-1 was deployed once again in the recent Rome derby against Lazio, suggesting the set-up for Barcelona wasn’t a one-off.

Roma don’t appear quite as formidable going forward as they were last term, scoring eight fewer goals in their Champions League campaign than Liverpool managed in the group stage alone, but they counter-balance that with a strong defensive record, shipping just 27 in Serie A to date.

Liverpool will not only have to cope with the threat of Nainggolan, Dzeko and young Turkish winger Cengiz Under – who isn’t a natural fit for 3-4-2-1 but could be an effective impact sub. They’ll also have to find a way past Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson, one of the highest-rated stoppers in Europe on current form.