Roma forward Francesco Totti said he felt like he had taken a beating from boxing legend Mike Tyson after CSKA Moscow grabbed a late equaliser in their Champions League tie on Tuesday.
Vasili Berezutski's goal with the last kick of the game denied Roma a victory that would have meant the Italian club could be certain of progress to the last 16 if they claimed either a draw or a win against Manchester City in their final group game.
Instead, they are now only certain to go through if they beat the Citizens at the Stadio Olimpico on Dec. 10, although a 0-0 draw would be sufficient if CSKA fail to win their game at Bayern Munich.
Totti, who had opened the scoring with a free kick, said to Sky Sport Italia: "It's like taking a pummelling from Tyson. I did not see it coming at all. It had been a perfect night for me -- my goal, 1-0 and we were almost through, and then what happened happened."
Worse news was to follow when Sergio Aguero's late goals saw City beat Bayern 3-2 to keep their own qualification hopes alive.
"We've just got to think about ourselves now," Totti said. "We knew it was going to be a hard group and nobody was giving us a chance in it, yet our destiny's still in our own hands. We're going to try to win our last game, in front of our own fans, who are bound to give us a big hand."
Roma coach Rudi Garcia said his players still have everything to gain.
"Everybody thought we were just making up the numbers in this group, yet here we are going into our last game with qualification in our hands," the Frenchman said. "We've just got to think about winning that game.
"Being in control of our own destiny is all that we could have hoped for. All is not lost."
Totti is now hoping to secure an important victory against Roberto Mancini's Inter Milan in Serie A this weekend.
"Now we've got to switch all of our efforts towards the league because we've got another difficult game on Sunday," he said. "They've just changed coach and we know he's a great motivator and a great coach, so it's going to be hard."