The coach’s analysis was ruthless: “I haven’t seen the game, I haven’t seen our qualities, I haven’t even seen the athleticism”
He had set out for Milan with the intention of going in search of improvements. And instead, suddenly Ivan Juric found himself a team that took a big step backwards. He wanted to find his bull again, the one from last championship, qualitative and aggressive, who was suffocated by the torrid heat on his home debut against Cagliari and whose traces were lost last night at San Siro, a few days after his first time in the championship. At one point, in the heart of the second half, part of the Meazza was left in the dark due to a sudden blackout which forced the referee to suspend the match for perhaps less than a minute. A blackout that lasted much longer fell on him: in the three years with Juric at the helm of the Turin government, the grenades had never been in so much difficulty against a great player in our league. It is early, very early, to reach hasty conclusions, because there is an entire championship ahead of us: it is clear, however, that the start in Serie A with a home tie against newly promoted Cagliari and the collapse at Milan requires a given far below expectations. It’s not the numbers that tell it, it’s above all the performances in these one hundred and eighty minutes that require an immediate reflection on the part of Juric.
Unrecognizable
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The grenade technician’s analysis is even tougher. His Toro was unrecognizable, and he says it clearly without mincing words: “This was Turin’s worst game since I’ve been the coach – says the Croatian coach -. It’s an evening that should make us think and reflect”. He’s naturally very down in the dumps, Juric. It cannot be otherwise and the concept repeats it at least a couple of times: “I have to think carefully about this match, I will do it in the next few days together with my collaborators”. Then he goes into the detail of the analysis: “I understand that we have suffered from the performance of players who are clearly stronger on an individual level than ours – continues Juric -, but too many things didn’t work”.
The calm
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He thinks a second longer when he speaks, he wants to weigh every word. “Right now I have to be calm and serene. First of all I want to review both this match and the one against Cagliari and I want to do it in the next few days, as soon as possible – continues Juric -. Of course, it is the first match during my management in the which I come and say was a really bad Taurus. It’s the first time, in these two and more years, where the feeling is highly negative, but I don’t want to get carried away by the emotionality of the moment. I want to think and reflect on all that what is around the Bull”.
Neither meat nor fish
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When the discussion comes to the contents of the match at San Siro, Juric’s analysis is coherent with the discussion and merciless. “We were neither fish nor fowl: I didn’t see anything from us. I didn’t see the game, I didn’t see our qualities, I didn’t even see our athleticism. Indeed, at a certain point a huge physical gap emerged All this should make me think a little, but to reach conclusions we need to be serene. Perhaps what we saw was also accentuated by our opponent, because against this Milan you have to suffer almost necessarily. Now we need to review the game and reason well, to make the right decisions”. Juric does not rule out that, with Toro’s current athletic level, he could also change the team’s tactical set-up. A necessity given the contingency because “physically we were very negative, at the level of play we had to do much better for the level of players we have. There was an enormous gap between us and them, a gap that was seen in all the wait. There was no match”. He goes back to the hypothesis of changes to be evaluated in the next few days in Philadelphia: “We must always go to the maximum to be the Bull we always have. Evidently, at the moment, there are some guys who perform much less and when this happens, a evening like this. As a coach, I have to think carefully about various things after a game like this”. The referee? “When you lose like this, it’s completely useless to talk about the referee.”
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