The Eindhoven crash used by the coach to (excessively) belittle the quality of his team: is there a strategy behind his words?
The paradox is that the “team of midfielders” seemed to unravel right there, in the middle, where PSV’s rapid attacking midfielders moved in every direction with superior pace and simultaneous ideas that seemed like the choreography of a dance. Man, Saibari, Perisic, Til (and then Pepi and Driouech) danced for a while, causing annoyance and promising trouble that promptly arrived as soon as Napoli took a step forward, widening the distances: the dance became the Carnival of Brabant, a party which only the referee’s whistle put an end to, because not even the score could calm them down, and there was no revelry ahead of them team to contain them, there was no self-respect in rebelling. There was no (anymore) Napoli’s midfield, that attempt by Conte to meet the market, the best, and towards a more continuous and compact proposal of play, an update after a championship won by biting it away, without a single crumb left over.