🎙️INTERVIEW | Muzzi to Radio TV Serie A

The club’s U20 technical coordinator and scout, Roberto Muzzi, spoke on Radio TV Serie A as part of the “Social Corner” format. These are his words:

ABOUT PAUL MENDY
“We’re happy, we’re really close to reaching our goal. Mendy? Paul is a very humble guy, he came here to Cagliari knowing he’d have to work hard to get to Serie A. From day one, he’s always done it with great desire, he deserves this satisfaction. He has the mentality: as soon as the match against Atalanta ended, despite having scored a brace in his first Serie A start, he came to me to reassure me. He had been off with a thigh problem: ‘I hope it’s nothing, I want to be there on Friday with the U20s in the league.’ He was already thinking about the next match, helping his teammates.”

LOOKING FOR THE TALENT TO BUILD THE FUTURE
Our scouting team works very well. We have a very close-knit and cohesive team. Besides me, there are Andrea Cossu, Gianluca Longo, and Danilo Sancamillo, under the direction of Guido Angelozzi. We operate in Sardinia, where we have many affiliated clubs that are part of our Academy, both on the mainland and internationally, of course. We approached Mendy with a video I’d seen: there was something about him that struck me. So we brought him to Cagliari to see him in person: after a training session, we decided to sign him. For this, I have to thank President Giulini, the sporting director of the youth sector, Pierluigi Carta, and the entire club; they placed their trust in me.

WORKING WITH YOUTH PLAYERS
Cagliari is placing a lot of emphasis on young players; we don’t just say it with words, we do it with actions. We’ve launched many players into the first team who came from our youth academy, such as Obert, Luvumbo, Idrissi, Liteta, Trepy, and Kingstone, to name a few. We also have a young coach who has shown he believes in young players. We spent three years together with coach Pisacane in the Primavera, and we have a very strong relationship. It takes hard work, patience, but also courage to bring them in and get them playing in Serie A. I hope more and more clubs in Italy will follow our example; it’s a model that’s paying off. It’s certainly something positive for our national team too: this year, Caprile and Palestra arrived from Cagliari, a 2005 player who was brought here by director Angelozzi. Cagliari trusted him, played him, and developed him. Is there a player from our youth academy who’s ready to make the leap? We’re working very well as a youth academy. I don’t like to name names now, but there are many of our young players who could to appear in Serie A. You need to have patience, time, and young players must also have the opportunity to make mistakes in order to grow.”