“We haven’t really trained a lot. Yesterday, those who had played on Boxing Day did some recovery work, while today we completed our final preparations. We’ll wait until tomorrow before making any final decisions: playing three games in a week means that you have to wait until the last minute and take into account injuries and the physical condition of the players. Stulac trained with the squad, we’ll see how he is tomorrow. Scozzarella won’t be part of the matchday squad. Who will come in? Today, I’ve taken a look at both Stulac and Rigoni, with the latter already having played in that position
“As for Roma? They are coming into this fixture on the back of an important match where they rediscovered what they’re capable of. So far, it’s been a mixed bag for them in terms of performances and results. Recently, their full-backs have pushed up a lot, while their wide players have looked to come inside. We need to contain them and do well in terms of being compact and showing humility. We’ll see who they’ll have up front – Schick, for example, attacks the space in behind a lot. We need to play at a high tempo and with a high intensity, while we also need to show a desire to win individual duels and try to take our chances. We’ll struggle if we let them dictate the tempo. “I admire Eusebio Di Francesco a lot, both as a coach and as a man. He has built his way to the top after starting out in the lower divisions. He has demonstrated that he is one of the best Italian coaches, including this year. You need time to get things right following so many changes during the transfer window. That said, Roma are on track to finish in the Champions League places and, together with Juventus, were the only Italian side to progress from their group in Europe. “If we analyse their physicality and the height of their players, it’s almost as if we’ll be coming up against a basketball team. We need to do well in terms of limiting them from dead ball situations. Their young players? Despite being young, Zaniolo is a very good player and could make the difference. When you have a lot of youth in your squad it can lead to a lot of inconsistency, but Roma are a team that have a lot of potential. “The racism problem? It’s not so easy to make judgements given that it was difficult to understand what was happening from watching the match, but on the pitch something different was felt. I think that we’ve got a cultural problem in Italy. We’re lagging behind a country like England, for example. Football has to remain a sporting event and shouldn’t be used as a medium through which stupid, ignorant people can vent and let off steam, although I don’t want to generalise of course. It’s not just a problem that relates to a certain part of the stadium, we need laws that punish certain events that often occur. This includes racism but also abuse of coaches from the stands. I hope change will come about as soon as possible, what we have to do is to behave in the right way. “It is the case that Fiorentina had a lot of shots in our last match, but the majority of them were outside the area and less dangerous than when we, for example, had a three versus one situation on the break. However, such situations don’t show up in the statistics from the match despite being very important in terms of shifting momentum. When you get the three points, it’s always the case that preparations for the game were good from a tactical perspective. Nevertheless, we can also say the same for our last few matches at home, during which we gave little away. The difference was that Inglese scored and the ball didn’t hit the post, for example. In Florence, we scored at the right time, that is at the end of the first half. The thing that is most impressive about the boys is that they are excellent at reading what is happening in games. They constantly display the humility of a team that is looking to avoid relegation, and this is something that needs to remain the same until the very end. “Bastoni and Zaniolo are two big prospects. The latter made his debut in the Champions League this year. Despite being very young, he is a player of great calibre, but Bastoni is also capable of becoming such a player. Iacoponi is proof that in life you need to always believe in yourself because nothing is impossible. We signed him when we were in the Lega Pro, and this year he is showing that he’s able to more than cut it at this level. In terms of his ability and how he is as a man, we made the right choice. I consider myself to be a very lucky coach because I train a group of great men. “The Abruzzo school of coaches? Myself, Massimo Oddo and Fabio Grosso all came through Pescara’s Renato Curi, and to have so many coaches from the same place is something to take into consideration. Inglese? He didn’t train yesterday or today but we’ll see. We are used to dealing with injuries. We’ll try to get him ready, if not we’ll still put a team out that can look to get a result. We have fast players who can utilise their characteristics when in space. “The psychological aspect? Roma are coming into this game in a positive frame of mind. I don’t like the phrase ‘nothing to lose’ in football because it indicates that we’re heading out onto the pitch with limitations. We’re coming into this off the back of a win and the lads have up until today achieved an extraordinary 2018. We’re taking on a strong side but you must have motivation in life. Every one of us has the pride of measuring ourselves against the best, we have the desire to finish the year in the best way possible. “The stats show that we’ve done better away from home, although we haven’t been too clinical in our last two home matches and this would’ve meant more points. Of course, 25 points so far is good, but we must improve on our precision. If you think about what happened in the summer and how the club and sporting director worked, then our year is worthy of an A+. However, obviously we cannot be content, and tomorrow we must look to get a result and finish an extraordinary year in the best way possible.”
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