Juve-Torino, Juric’s press conference: “The past doesn’t count, we want to win”

The fire of the derby burns Juric’s soul. “In these two years that I have been the coach of Toro I have understood that we never win this match, and this thing disturbs me”. Thus begins the Granata coach, twenty-four hours before the Stadium derby. “But there’s no point in thinking about the past, I told the boys to only think about winning this derby. It’s something we really want to achieve. From the city I perceive a great incentive to win, from everyone: certainly for us it is not a burden not to have had the derby for many years, but for the team this night which is coming must represent a great opportunity. The kids have to see it that way.”

CHANGE HISTORY

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Torino hasn’t won a derby since 2015, and hasn’t scored a coup against Juventus since 1995. “I want to change this trend – continues Juric -. Our two realities are certainly very different, and this is the difference between the Turin derby and all the other derbys. But in recent years our matches have all been very balanced, often decided on set pieces and for some details.” What will Torino have to add on this occasion? “It takes everything – replies the coach -. We need to be more aggressive, we need to try to repeat the latest performances against them but trying to be tougher.”

RADONJIC OUT

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Juric does not recover Sazonov, “Tameze will play as the third defender on the right because we have no other solutions”, he announces. Zima will be called up, “but he is not ready to play from the start. Then I won’t recover anyone else,” he says, making it clear that Vojvoda won’t make it. Up front, Toro will confirm tradition, playing with two attacking midfielders and a centre-forward. “Sanabria won’t play from the start, not in this match: against a three-man defense I prefer to have two attacking midfielders and a central striker”. Which will be Zapata, “he gets there well, he always trains great”. On the eve Juric excludes Radonjic, and listening to his words it seems that there is also doubt that he will be called up: “Will it be Radonjic’s match? No. With him so far we’ve gone down, then up, then down and then you get tired. Ilic? His brain works well.”

fanatical bull

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Take a step back, Juric, and return to the last home match against Verona. “It’s obvious that I also expected more from many players, but we played with determination and ferocity. So tomorrow I hope to repeat that type of performance, with determination and ferocity.” Then he opens a whole discussion on the growth he expects from Taurus in terms of mentality. “Vlahovic and Chiesa out? They miss those two, we miss many others, but other things count more in derbies. I certainly hope that their absences don’t become a distraction for the dressing room, that would be madness. Instead there must be a fantastic motivation. I want to say one thing: in the last two years we have always been at the top to score 50 and 53 points. Today I don’t see that we are at the top, in everything. To go further, on a mentality level, we must acquire a kind of fanaticism – underlines Juric – in training, in living together. At the moment there is no fanaticism, and we are less than top in mentality: I would like this level to be raised to achieve something more.”