Marco Giampaolo analyzes the match this way from the press room at Tardini: “I said you have to have courage. It’s a beautiful profession where you can’t exempt yourself from having courage and personality, they are ingredients to play soccer. Everything else that is part of the competition comes later: direct clash, heavy on the standings, repercussions…The boys were cool, good, we were not frantic, it has been a bit of a flaw of ours until today but it was not like that. We took good responsibility and there’s a long way to go.”
On Krstovic, the coach comments, “He is young, he is a strong footballer but he will become very strong when he completes his course, he has everything. He scored a nice goal, Helgason gave him a wonderful ball. Beyond the individuals we played well on the collective level in helping each other.”
In the end, Dorgu waved goodbye to the Giallorossi fans, “I provoked him. Dorgu will be in Manchester tomorrow, he is a wonderful boy, he is 20 years old and this opportunity gives you other thoughts for your head. It did not seem right to me to play him out of respect for the players and for Lecce. If there was a need I would have employed him, I thought about it.”
After The Cagliari defeat, Giampaolo called for mental growth from his team, “We work on the mental aspect. I often use courage, personality, not getting played out of the game, things that improve and grow self-esteem. You work and lately it happened, we were winning in Cagliari, we won in Empoli even with difficulties. Defeat undermines you, victory gives sprint. The success was deserved by right conduct.”
Giampaolo changed the starting eleven to Ramadani and Karlsson: “Lecce needs everyone. We can’t think of playing in eleven, we are dead before we start. Everyone has to give minutes. Morente had a family bereavement and missed a few days, Coulibaly had the birth of his daughter. Ramadani was fine and I played him, ditto for Karlsson, I rewarded those who had continuity to give them confidence. If I say 11 players are not enough I have to prove it with facts. They are all starters, as are Morente and Coulibaly. The more reliable players we have, the better we play.”
Giampaolo concludes, “I asked the team to have serious fun, when we have the ball we are lighter, we always work on it. Today was the best expression of this lightness, which I hope is still there. The results help even though we were coming from certainly not great scores.”
Article Giampaolo: “I asked the boys for courage…and to have serious fun” comes from Calcio Lecce.
