PRESS ROOM | Nicola after Atalanta-Cagliari
Mister Nicola spoke to the media after the away draw against Atalanta. These are his words:
ORDERLY MATCH
“Against such a strong opponent, we needed order, and the team maintained it throughout, never giving up on playing, even though we obviously allowed them more possession. We never attacked the depth more than twice in a row, as that would have left us too stretched out. We were good at passing and preparing the play, but we lacked a bit in filling the midfield to support Piccoli better and more often. However, we know what our goal is and how much we are worth, so we must avoid superficiality and arrogance. If we’re not a team, we won’t get anywhere. Today, we were very much a team.”
ON YERRY MINA
“Those who have been in the locker room know that leadership is built with many elements; there are players with different characteristics, and everything is important. Today, I’m happy for Yerry (Mina, ed.) because he’s reaching certain levels in terms of reading the game and timing in many situations. He’s training with great consistency and playing almost always, which was one of the goals we set for him at the start of our work together. For me, a player with his physical, technical, and tactical qualities should have a significant impact, and I hope he can continue to do so more and more, right until the end.”
WORKING ON AWARENESS
“If I have to point something out today, it’s that we lacked a bit of awareness in believing that we could go further, not because we are better than Atalanta, but because when you create an opportunity, you need to speed up and be precise in involving the third man and in vertical play. This means we still lack full awareness. We always try to propose, not just limit the opponent. Other times, we may have pushed too much and lost, but today, balance was important, and even one point at a time can help a lot on our journey. There’s still a lot to do, we know that. Today, we recognize Atalanta’s merits, but also our own in playing a well-ordered and organized game.”
MAXIMUM COMMITMENT
“Everyone had the same level of commitment today, and only in this way could we play a match like this. Today was one of the best performances overall in terms of focus and organization, without rushing. We had already done this in Milan, but today we went even further, and that is very important.”
THE RIGHT WAY
“These types of matches, you can risk losing even when playing very well. Today, everyone gave their absolute best, which is really a lot. I liked this a lot because it means we’re on the right track and have understood what our belief is. The only thing missing was speeding up when we found space in the final third. Piccoli put in a huge amount of work, Adopo and Deiola could have supported the forward more consistently, but it’s true that we’re used to playing with a 4-4-1-1, so our movements are different. In the second half, we could certainly have capitalized on the chances, but it’s still a very important result. At one point, we even considered bringing on Luvumbo to be more offensive, but it would have been very risky, perhaps too much at that stage of the game and with how things were unfolding. As always, balance is key.”
