The Brighton coach on the eve of the match against Roma: “Daniele has made an impact on an already strong team. Our injured players? Let’s not feel sorry for ourselves”
Tomorrow evening they will face each other with saber blows. Until that moment, however, both Daniele De Rossi and Roberto De Zerbi decided to save their jabs. And so, after the honeyed words of the Giallorossi coach, the Brighton coach – during the press conference at the Olympic stadium – also chooses to use the foil when it comes to talking about his opponent (and friend): “De Rossi was born to be a coach, two years ago during the World Cup break I think he still wasn’t coaching Spal but I don’t want to be wrong, I had indicated him as one of the possible great coaches, he has all the components such as personality and charisma with the players. I’m happy because he is changing a strong team, with two finals, he has made an impact on the game and is getting results and it wasn’t a given, from my point of view he is a great coach. I don’t know if he will play four or three, I don’t even know how I will play”. And speaking of courage, De Zerbi chooses to call into question other examples from our championship: “If we talk about the last championships, I believe that the reality is very different compared to 10-15 years ago. Gasperini is ahead in this, Italian, Thiago Motta have taken Serie B teams, even Vivarini’s Catanzaro has taken a different direction.”
friends
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Then the focus returns to the relationship with De Rossi, who in recent days had spent important words on De Zerbi defining him “a genius”: “I don’t feel like a genius, nor better than the others. Work certainly doesn’t scare me and I don’t lack the courage to do things that others don’t do which may be right or wrong. I live for football, this is the difference that having this career is making me. I don’t think I was born smarter than others, I always say it but it’s clear that if I have to do something different that I believe in, if I have to do something new because I believe in it I do it without thinking about the implications or negative aspects that could block this What. I respect De Rossi because he is my friend, we are very similar as people, so much so that our daughters have become friends because we have the same values. I appreciate what he said, Roma are strong with Mourinho and De Rossi, we have no experience but we came here to play for it, we know what stadium we play in but we know what we are worth and what we have done in a year and a half and we are proud”. However, when asked who his daughter will support tomorrow, De Zerbi smiles before dotting the i’s: “My daughter doesn’t support Roma, she is friends with Gaia, Daniele’s daughter, and my daughter keeps her company. My daughter is clearly rooting for me, then we were rooting for Daniele against Feyenoord. As for my daughter, I have no doubts about who she will support.”
all fronts
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De Zerbi becomes serious again when talking about his Brighton’s path and ambitions: “We have made the choice to honor all the competitions to the fullest, the match against Roma is no more important than Brighton-Nottingham on Sunday. It is clear that we are not used to playing three games a week for so long, so much so that we have reached 10 injured players at the same time, we do not have such a large squad. It’s normal that not being used to playing European competitions, something is certainly lost along the way. Before the Europa League started, we won 4 games and lost one, then it was difficult to compete like last year and like we were used to.”
injured
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For the Seagulls it will be the first European match in or out in the club’s history. A detail that doesn’t seem to worry the coach too much: “I won the Champions League preliminaries at Shakhtar Donetsk, eliminating Genk and Monaco. The match lasts 180 minutes and we will have to be good at not losing our identity and quickly finding the balance between being ourselves and also thinking that tomorrow night it won’t be over. There are another 90 minutes and this is something new for Brighton.” Not even the many injuries that have affected various cornerstones of his squad seem to worry him: “On injuries I say that it is a topic to be taken in two ways: either we cry and say how many important players we have out, or it is taken as an opportunity because we aim to get through and compete with all these injured people. Nobody gives us a guarantee that with Mitoma, Joao Pedro, Milner, or with Enciso in form we will get through, I don’t want to hear about injuries, we have enough for tomorrow.”
surprise
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Before leaving the press room, the surprise arrives. Despite the interest – more or less under the radar – from several top European clubs and the Premier League, De Zerbi is not closing the door to a return to Serie A: “It’s not true that you don’t think about Italy, it’s my country though I do what I like and what makes me happy is staying at Brighton. I’m lucky enough to have a team that allows me to play these competitions, it gives me satisfaction but even when we lose I find good things from the players I coach. Later, I don’t know when, I will return to Italy but there is no pre-established reason. Of course, the choice I made three years ago to go to Shakhtar was that I also wanted to create a path for myself outside of Italy by choice and because without going into detail there were some things that I didn’t like and I looked for something else.” .
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