At the end of Sassuolo-Turin, a match valid for the 24th round of Serie A, the Granata coach Ivan Juric spoke to the microphones of Sky Sports to comment on the match. Below are his statements.
A good first half, the second half not so good. A fair equal?“We must have some regret. In the first half we created a lot, in the second less, conceding nothing. Some situations go badly for us, in the end we took the lead. There is regret for not winning these types of races. To win we always have to be perfect and then it becomes difficult: you have to win even when you are only slightly better than your opponents.”
If there was a Bellanova on the left, you would be higher…“He is doing very well, but we have faith in Vojvoda and Lazaro who can do well. The goal? Let’s give Lovato time. We are missing important pieces in defense, we are conceding situations that we normally don’t concede, losing tackles that we usually win.”
Third best defense and third worst attack. Have you tried to move some checks and balances to maintain this defense and improve the offense?“We are spending a lot of time on the game, on the attack, on the last meters. All the work is focused on crosses, shots, solutions. Today we created a lot, several very dangerous situations. We need to increase the number of goals, that’s for sure. Then the defensive phase is thanks to the whole team. Sassuolo has many good players but we conceded little or nothing.”
Your goal is of important quality. However, in other situations there is often one touch too many that nullifies situations. Create a lot, but create often in full area situations…“It depends on the matches. There are games where you have more spaces and others where you have everything closed. I am convinced that we have the ability to improve the last step and be faster. Away from home we play with personalities and create dangerous situations, but we haven’t managed to exploit them. Sassuolo is currently fighting for survival, but they have a great squad. For me we had an excellent performance, now we have two games at home and we want to take advantage of them.”
Did you talk about Europe because it was the objective of the three-year period or because it was right to do so?“We started from two seventeenth places and now for three years we have been on the left side of the table, I consider it a great result but it is clear that it cannot satisfy the whole environment because Toro has a special history. I want to raise the bar too. In many matches, like this one, against Salernitana, in Florence, in Bologna, we collected less than we deserved. The ones we won, however, we deserved. I hope to recover some injured players, we can compete with everyone. We can believe it, even on a mental level. We’re doing very well, the left side of the table is a lot of stuff for me, but we want something more.”.
What did your wife say to you after the words said in the last match?“That I was indefensible and that I was an idiot. After the matches I have a lot of adrenaline… I would simply like there to be a great union between the team and the city. We have a team that fights great and I would like that to be perceived. We will try to do our best and make our fans happy.”
Do you think this team has the strength to withstand superior pressure?“I thought about it, but on the other hand what I’ve noticed in the past is that sometimes there is a feeling of a full stomach, of a comfort zone. So I decided instead that we need to create a mindset. Let’s try to win, to move forward. We try to do better than the best, without sitting around saying we did the best.”.
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