Miralem Pjanic vs. Luka Modric Will Be the Key Battle in Roma vs. Real Madrid

The Champions League is back. On Wednesday, Real Madrid travel to Italy to take on AS Roma at the Stadio Olimpico for the first leg of their round-of-16 tie in the continental competition. 

As little as a month ago, this tie looked woefully lopsided but not quite so much anymore. In January, on the back of an awful 10-game stretch that featured just one victory, Roma sacked manager Rudi Garcia and replaced him with Luciano Spalletti, a former boss who led the club during its strongest period of the last decade between 2005 and 2009. 

Spalletti's tenure started with a draw against Verona and a loss to Juventus, but the Giallorossi have strung together four straight wins since—their best run of the season. 

Roma's improvement goes beyond results, too. In the final months of Garcia's tenure, the team had grown sluggish and prosaic, going through a five-game stretch in November and December in which just a solitary goal was scored.

After a 2-0 loss to Atalanta at the beginning of that run, Roma fans blockaded the club's training ground with crates of carrots and a banner that read, "Eat up, rabbits."

But now Roma look different. 

Having discarded Garcia's 4-3-3, Spalletti, who brought the false-nine position in vogue with Francesco Totti during his first spell at the club, has begun to craft another system of innovation and perpetual movement.

Already, Roma have used both a 4-2-3-1 and a 3-4-2-1 under the new boss, and the centre-forward position has again been discarded at times in favour of mobile, floating attackers in the form of Diego Perotti, Stephan El Shaarawy and Mohamed Salah. 

Thus, Wednesday's clash with Real Madrid suddenly looks a little different; Roma pose new challenges. 

Through the January loan additions of Perotti from Genoa and El Shaarawy from AC Milan, Roma's attack is now far more dynamic. From the left, the latter gives Spalletti a goalscoring threat from out wide, while the former's comfort in drifting across the front line and into midfield has seen him quickly adopt the false-nine role.

Thrown in Salah and perhaps even Alessandro Florenzi, and you have a mobile forward setup capable of causing Madrid some headaches. 

As such, Madrid's success will be dependent on their ability to control the game's tempo and nullify that threat. 

To date under Zinedine Zidane, Los Blancos have been a high-possession outfit thanks to a playmaker-heavy lineup.

Since taking over from Rafa Benitez, the Frenchman has discarded a traditional midfield anchor and used Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Isco as his central trio. On its own, that combination is very technical, but since the injury to Gareth Bale in mid-January, it's been added to through the presence of James Rodriguez—a third forward or fourth midfielder (depending on how you look at it) whose addition means Madrid are almost playing with four natural No. 10s. 

The result has been a Madrid team that looks more like the Carlo Ancelotti incarnation of late 2014, when the capital club shifted in style toward a more Barcelona-like method. The defensive line is now higher. The full-backs are pushing on more than ever. The possession dominance is greater. 

So far it's been a resounding success, but it does mean that Madrid are once more extremely vulnerable to counter-attacks, and this is where Modric's battle with Miralem Pjanic comes in. 

The occasions in which Madrid have struggled this season have come when opponents have been able to nullify Modric through pressure in key moments.

In Barcelona's destruction of Madrid in November's Clasico, it was Luis Suarez's stealing of the ball from Modric that led to the visitors' critical second goal. It was a theme throughout.

When Villarreal took an early and ultimately decisive lead against Madrid in December, Bruno Soriano did the same to Modric to set up Roberto Soldado's winner. 

Those are the headline moments, but there have been others too. For Modric, who's been truly outstanding recently, such moments haven't been glaring individual errors. Instead, they've been systematic shortcomings, the Croatian left isolated when collecting possession as his team-mates push forward. 

Regularly, Modric's technical ability sees him escape trouble in these situations, but once or twice per game, opportunities arise for opponents to pressure him when he's left without support—the sort of moments that lead to two-on-two or three-on-two situations against Madrid's centre-backs if the ball is turned over. 

Thus, such moments will be key for Roma on Wednesday. 

Against a lethal attack, the home side will need to pick their battles in this respect, but possessing a pacey and mobile attack of their own, it's imperative that Roma give themselves opportunities to run at Madrid's defence. 

Pjanic could be the key man here.  

To create situations in which Roma have numerical advantages when counter-attacking, it's not enough for only the forwards who've dropped back to apply pressure on Modric when he collects the ball. From time to time, a central midfielder has to step out from his line and challenge Madrid's chief architect—particularly when Isco and the full-backs have pushed on—limiting his vision and depriving him of time. 

If Pjanic can be the man to apply that pressure and pinch possession on a couple of occasions, Roma will have situations where Perotti, El Shaarawy and maybe Salah, being fed by Pjanic, will be attacking with little in front of them.  

It's important that Pjanic is the man servicing them, too. Linked with a move to Real Madrid in 2015, the central midfielder is Roma's best distributor by a distance. Possessing a diverse passing range, a deft first touch and a knack for splitting several lines with a single ball, the Bosnia and Herzegovina international is the man who can hurt Madrid in brief moments. 

As such, his battle with Modric will be pivotal to Roma's hopes of an upset. It won't be a head-to-head, 90-minute playmaking battle, though; Madrid and Modric will dominate possession too much for that to occur.

Instead, the pair's battle will be one of brief moments, centred on whether Pjanic can give his attackers two or three half-chances on the break by capitalising on the intermittent occasions when Modric is isolated and vulnerable in Madrid's playmaker-heavy system.