“I don’t have to prove anything, my team and I have no categories. Are we like Como? No, we’re different.” The coach of the newly promoted team that dominated Serie B speaks
It cannot always be a question of categories, like those between which Max Allegri divides colleagues and footballers: who wins and who loses. Everything can’t always be reduced to a label. To a judgment that becomes prejudice and turns into a brand that then sticks to you, and you want to remove it. Thus, one would be doing Giovanni Stroppa, 58, an injustice by dismissing him under the nickname “Mister Promotion”, as was also done to highlight his ability to bring the teams he coaches from Serie B to A. He has achieved this four times in his career, the last one in June with Venezia. However, at the moment of the fateful leap in quality – proving himself capable of playing great football – it didn’t end well: in Pescara, Crotone and Monza. But the labels, in fact, must be read carefully. “In Pescara I resigned in November, with the team virtually safe; in Monza I never had the full team. So, forgive my presumption, but I don’t have to prove anything. I’ve been on the pavement for a lifetime. I’m very serene and calm. I don’t coach based on category, and I don’t need certificates to consider myself a Serie A coach or, vice versa, a B coach. I simply believe I’m doing the best I can do. The numbers speak for me. The numbers of my last eight to ten years, which are indisputable.”
And beyond those, what is there?
“There is a very strong idea of football that has led me to these numbers, compared to which promotion represents only the outcome. Numbers that reflect a working method: mine. With me you work in a certain way. Which remains the same in A as in B. My director, Filippo Antonelli, said a phrase that I really liked: Venezia has no category. I feel like making it my own and saying that Venezia, and consequently Giovanni Stroppa who Venezia coaches, have no category. However and wherever I go, I will always try to give my best because I have an extraordinary passion for this profession.”
Can the attacking football, which your team showed in the recently concluded Serie B season, also be proposed again in Serie A?
“Venice showed my idea of football, but also Cremonese, Monza, Crotone, the other teams I brought to Serie A, and Foggia, with whom I rose from C to B. Well, there are plenty of photographs. We’ll certainly have to be balanced. But, if you look at it, my teams have always had a balance between the offensive and defensive phases, between goals scored and goals scored. Here too, the numbers speak for themselves.”
Is there a symbolic player in Venezia’s promotion?
“No. Everyone was a protagonist. And the difference was especially made by those who played less.”
Has anyone surprised you in a positive way?
“I knew I was going to coach a strong team and I must say that my expectations were confirmed. I have the pride and satisfaction of being able to say that all my players have improved during this season.”
Trivial question: what changes between B and A, and what will Venezia need to navigate in calm waters?
“We need to make the right additions on an already solid base. What changes? In Serie A there is deeper individual knowledge, more powerful engines, better players: more experienced, stronger technically. Therefore we will have to concede less, make fewer mistakes, all things that seem obvious but which we will have to keep in mind precisely because we will find equipped teams up against us, with precise identities, therefore with engines, I repeat, different from those we got used to competing against last season”.
So, what does it take to face the next one with confidence?
“We need knowledge, we need to raise the bar on everyone’s part, myself and all the other members of the club. We need to equip ourselves to achieve the right balance on and off the pitch.”
The club has ambitious ownership. The Venezia is inspired by the Como model?
“I’m not saying that I don’t like Como, but we are not Como. We are really different. We must forget about being able to compete with those who have spent what Como has spent, because otherwise we give ourselves misleading expectations. It’s true, we have a very ambitious club and entrepreneurs, there is a structure that is working to be able to do it, but from here to saying what we will do is not so simple. I repeat: we need balance. There is a team to improve, there is a sports center in evolution, we already have a stadium under construction, while in the rest of the country bureaucracy almost always blocks the construction of new facilities. With all this, forget that we can think of Como at the moment. We have nothing to do with them.”
Perhaps a point of contact between you and Fabregas’ team lies precisely in the game proposal of both…
“I don’t know. We can meet here at the end of the season and see what we have managed to do, but I certainly can’t give an answer at the moment. It’s clear that we will try to play in a certain way, with courage, but keeping balance in mind, once again.”
We are not Como. We are really different. We must forget about being able to compete with those who spent what Como spent
However, our football needs courage, at least in ideas, to be able to at least try to reduce the distance that separates us from the Premier League, La Liga and company. Starting from what should we do to relaunch ourselves?
“I’ve always said it: in my opinion, the youth sectors work very poorly. There aren’t the skills, there aren’t the economic resources, there are no instructors, and those who are there don’t work for the kids, to make them grow, but for themselves. The youth sector is seen as a passage to become coaches of the greats. It’s not good, and I believe that the responsibility, pardon the pun, lies with the managers who manage the youth sectors”.
Years ago, in Sportweek, you said: ‘It is better to train young footballers, because the old ones are polluted by the professional path they have taken, by the working methods to which they have been accustomed and by their own superstitions. Change scares them.’ He confirms?
“My thoughts remain the same, but it’s wonderful to find a key to make those who are older understand that with a path, a method, with different knowledge you can become even better. It’s like in life: when you know how to do one thing well but you learn to do two, it’s even better.”
Also to Sportweek, he said that coaching Milan was his mission. Does this also confirm or, given the situation at the Rossoneri, is it better to stay away?
“I’m just saying that I’m sorry for the way things are going there now. But beyond what I would like to do, for me being in Venice at this moment is an honor. I feel one hundred percent Venetian. Having been confirmed by the club to continue this path is a source of pride. I say it sincerely. I don’t have the ambition of making a career, if another opportunity comes I’ll take it into consideration, but if it doesn’t come I’ll feel great here, for what we’re building.”
Which are the three teams in Europe that you most enjoy watching play?
“PSG, Barcelona, Bayern, but Como isn’t bad. I liked Inter too.”
Is there a player you dream of coaching?
“No. I would like the players I coached this year to confirm themselves in Serie A. It would be the greatest satisfaction.”
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