Lukas tapped the ball forward, and he was off.

"Oh my goodness. What a mistake! Lukas Brandt with acres of space to run into! Only the goalkeeper between him and the goal. Roma is in trouble!"

Hummels, Mancini, and N'Dicka gave chase. But they could never cover the gap.

Lukas covered the half-field in no time as he got to the edge of the penalty area.

"Lukas one-on-one with Svilar. Svilar is off his line... HE CHIPS HIM... And it's 1 - 1!"

Lukas ran towards the away fans' edge to celebrate as his teammates ran to join him.

"Hold on... The flag has gone up!"

Hummels and Mancini ran to the referee to protest the goal. The flag stayed down until Lukas scored, so the play was still on. The referees were told not to raise the flag if they were not 100% sure of the call and to allow the play to continue.

Claudio Ranieri, the AS Roma coach, ran to the fourth official at the sidelines to plead his case. He was asked to step back as the communication with VAR was already ongoing.

Lukas looked at the Jumbotron where the buildup to the goal was being replayed.

"I was not offside," he muttered to Ekitike.

"Yeah, when I saw you, you were onside."

Then the excruciating wait started.

This was, unfortunately, not the Champions League, so there was no Semi-Automated Offside Technology, and the lines had to be drawn by the VAR officials.

{IT:} "We're getting word from the VAR officials. It is tight. Very tight. But the verdict is out..."

The referee blew his whistle, made a box sign in the air, and pointed to the centre circle.

{IT:} "This goal will stand! AS Roma one, Eintracht Frankfurt one. Hummels's heels were what kept Lukas onside. It was a very tight call."

Another round of celebrations ensued after the goal was given, as Larsson jumped on Lukas while the home fans booed the decision.

It was not unusual, though, as the supporters of any team on the opposite end of a VAR review will always feel hard done by the decision.

Ranieri tried to protest again but was warned by his assistant that he could receive a yellow card if he approached the fourth official violently.

The game resumed after a Dovbyk kick-off.

From that point onward, the match was brutal, as Roma tried to get back in front while the crowd roared them on.

They put their bodies on the line in every tackle, every second ball, every attacking sequence.

And all Eintracht could do was defend.

Toppmöller ordered them to sit in a low block, with Lukas at the edge of his own penalty area helping to block long-range shots or intercept passes into the box.

In the 64th minute, a shot from Soulé, who had come on a few minutes prior for Paredes, deflected off Skhiri and landed in Trapp's gloves.

Immediately, Lukas saw Trapp with the ball, and he broke forward at pace. And once Trapp saw him making the run, he launched the ball toward Lukas with his hand.

Roma was caught off guard, as all of their players were in Eintracht's half when they attacked, and they started scrambling back to defend.

With the outside of his right boot, Lukas cushioned the ball from Trapp as it went through the legs of Koné.

He brushed Koné aside as he retrieved the ball from the other side, poked it, and he was gone.

The next time he touched the ball, he was at the halfway line. The next, he was already in Roma's final third.

Mancini, who was initially the deepest AS Roma player when Lukas received the ball from Trapp, was now the only player between Lukas and the goalkeeper. His job was to slow Lukas down and buy enough time for his teammates, who were closing in fast, to get back and defend.

Ekitike and Uzun, who had come in for Knauff, were also sprinting towards Lukas together with the Roma players as Lukas ran down the pitch.

Lukas knew he could outrun Mancini, and that was exactly what he tried to do.

Without any fancy footwork, Lukas hit the ball down Mancini's left-hand side and sprinted down the opposite side.

Mancini, who was already half-turned, turned around completely to chase the ball, but he knew Lukas had beaten him for pace.

Just as Lukas got to the ball a few meters away from the penalty area, he glanced at the goalkeeper and put his laces through the ball. Both of his legs went off the ground as he struck it with nothing but power.

BANG!

The sound seemed to quiet the stadium as the ball crashed onto the crossbar.

Svilar had gotten a finger to the ball while diving at full stretch, as a recovering Mancini thumped the ball forward.

"Wonderful save from Svilar there! That was heading for the roof of the net. Almost the perfect counterattack by Eintracht Frankfurt. Brandt with a clean connection. All 60,000+ Roma fans in the stadium must have felt their hearts drop into their stomachs after that strike. Svilar might just have rescued Roma!"

Lukas shook his head in disbelief for a brief moment as he looked at the goalkeeper before turning around to look for the ball.

"WHAT THE—?!"

Lukas had to stop himself from cursing as he turned to see Shomurodov, who had come on for Dovbyk at the same time as Soulé, one-on-one with Trapp, with Koch pressing back, as he managed to hit the ball past the goalkeeper even under pressure.

"How did that happen so fast?" Lukas thought as the Roma players, including Mancini — who was standing just in front of Lukas — ran to the opposite corner of the pitch to join Shomurodov in the celebrations.

"Oh my goodness! Shomurodov might just have won it for Roma! Incisive counterattacking football from both teams, but Roma has been more clinical! It's AS Roma two, Eintracht Frankfurt one!"

The Eintracht forwards were already in Roma's final third due to Lukas's run, and even the defensive players had pushed up higher, temporarily ending the low block.

When Mancini cleared the ball after it came off the crossbar, it headed high into the air but not really far away from Roma's final third. This drew even more Eintracht players up the field as they tried to contain the ball in Roma's half and relieve the pressure they had been under since Lukas's equalizer.

The ball landed on the right-hand flank of Roma's half, and Soulé controlled.

Theate applied pressure in an attempt to dispossess him, but with a deft flick of his heel, Soulé hooked the bouncing ball over a scrambling Theate's head before using his own head to control it and drive forward.

He got to the halfway line and lobbed a perfect pass over the heads of the two Eintracht center-backs into the path of Shomurodov on the other side of the pitch.

Shomurodov — after a few lucky touches — was able to go one-on-one with Trapp and give AS Roma a much-needed lead against Frankfurt.

Toppmöller clapped to encourage his team not to give up, while Ranieri was not satisfied with a one-goal lead as he urged his men to keep up the tempo and stay focused.

Two minutes after the restart, the game was more expansive than before.

Eintracht tried to bring the game level again, while Roma launched counterattacks whenever they won the ball back.

The tackles from Roma also got a lot more aggressive. And one man was marked as the most dangerous Eintracht Frankfurt player on the pitch...

The youngest man on the pitch.

The home support already started whistling whenever Lukas got the ball after he gave them that scare — which was only mitigated by a wonderful Svilar save — but now, the Roma players were not letting him have it as much as he wanted.

But Lukas remained undeterred, under the nicks and slick pushes from the Roma players. The dangling legs whenever he tried to start a run. Or the obvious body checks whenever he was about to drift into an open space, even when he didn't have the ball.

The fouls were annoying to Lukas, but he was getting even more frustrated that no Roma player had received a yellow card after all the tackles he had endured since their second goal.

"I should take him off soon. This game is not that important," Toppmöller thought as he watched Lukas pick himself up from another push by a Roma player. He had already complained about the lack of yellow cards to the fourth official earlier but was now contemplating replacing Lukas.

In the 74th minute, Tuta fizzed a pass down the middle toward Lukas, who was at the edge of the center circle inside Roma's half.

Pellegrini had stretched his leg to intercept the pass, but it had so much pace on it that it got to Lukas before he could get there.

"Ohh wonderful first touch, Roma's defense is split wide open — this could be the moment!"