PRESS ROOM | The Sport Director Guido Angelozzi talks to the media

Cagliari Sporting Director Guido Angelozzi met with the media in the press room at the Unipol Domus. The focus of the meeting was a general update on the Rossoblu’s winter transfer window with the journalists in attendance.

THE MARKET BALANCE SHEET
We all hope we’ve done well. We’ve implemented and maintained our strategy of focusing on youth, something we agreed upon at the start of the season, and we’re proceeding accordingly. We immediately signed two experienced players in Dossena and Sulemana, who were also needed to fill the gap for the many injured players. These are two ready-made players you know well and who understand the environment. We then looked at two youngsters, Raterink and Albarracín, with the aim of bringing them here immediately and allowing them to mature over the next few months, where they can already make their contribution. Let’s not forget two youngsters like Di Paolo and Gallea, who will stay on permanent contracts to develop in Serie C and finish their careers.

GOODBYE LUPERTO
“Luperto’s departure has certainly generated, as expected, a lot of debate: I personally declared him unsellable (after the Cremona match, ed.), and I’m not hiding it. He’s also a godson of mine, having had him when I first started out at Lecce. However, unexpected things often happen in the transfer market. We received a significant request in the last few hours, and we decided to sell him. It was a profitable move for the club; I consider myself a company man, and I pushed through with it. Luperto was certainly a player of great skill and experience. I wish him, and we, the best of luck for his future. However, a strong club makes decisions and must carefully consider them, as we did in the summer when we sold Zortea and Piccoli, which also sparked discussion, but was ultimately proven right by subsequent events. We also played without Luperto, using Rodriguez, who has proven his worth, or other players, like Mina, Zé. Pedro, Zappa, Deiola himself”.

PRATI AND LUVUMBO
“Matteo started sixteen games, but lately the coach has had Gaetano’s intuition in front of the defense, and right now Gianluca is proving to be superior to Prati. The boy asked us to leave, and we granted his request. Luvumbo, too, wanted a change of scenery, and we decided to sell him to Mallorca, even though Lecce were also interested. The same goes for Rog, with whom we terminated his contract. How do I rate our transfer market? I don’t like to rate myself; it’s the journalists and fans who judge, but I’m satisfied. Maybe yes, I could have done a little more now in January, to be honest.”

THE FANS AND THE GOAL
“I love our fans, but at strong clubs, decisions have to be made. This one was made by me and the president, we think it’s good for the club. We’re not safe yet; we have to stay in Serie A. It’s not a given that with those who left, we would have finished tenth. In football, the pitch speaks for itself, and what happens from now on matters. There was some grumbling over some moves in the summer, and I’d say we’ve overcome them fairly well. We’re continuing to work against big clubs, and we’re focused on getting the points we need to reach our goal. The fans are the most important thing; a club must think about the financial resources it needs to move forward, even taking responsibility for unpopular decisions. There’s great enthusiasm, and we’re working to keep it high with results.”

COULD KILIÇSOY STAY IN CAGLIARI?
Semih is doing well and is giving us his talent. His exploits are being talked about not just in Cagliari, but throughout Europe. The Besiktas president said we recently contacted them about buying him for a lower fee, bringing forward the deal, but the Turkish club hasn’t responded. However, our intention remains to continue enjoying Semih while evaluating a buyout. Top-level players should be managed this way, as we’ve done in the past. In the meantime, we hope he continues to score. Dossena’s loan is fixed, and Sulemana’s buyout option is high, but never say never. We’ll see at the end of the season.

MISSED TARGETS
“I said we could have done more because we were close to signing Dominguez from Bologna, but they didn’t want to let him go because they couldn’t find an alternative. Negotiations were underway, but it wasn’t possible. Dominguez was close, but there’s always the club involved. We had an agreement to sign him either permanently with a future sale or on loan with an option to buy. The January transfer window is extremely difficult, also for this reason. We believe in Trepy; when he was called upon, he scored on his debut. We were also in talks for Kouamé, then I thought about Trepy again and had doubts, so we left it alone: ​​it would have been one thing to sign Dominguez, who is at the top of his game and was a target for the president and the coach, but it would have been another to sign Kouamé, taking away the space of one of our young players. We’ll see if we did the right thing.”

SERIE A VERY DIFFICULT
“All the clubs are prepared, even those on the right side of the table fighting for survival. Staying up is tough; there’s a team like Fiorentina that’s fighting to avoid relegation and certainly had other objectives. It’s a difficult championship; the first thing Cagliari must do is achieve safety as quickly as possible. Once we’ve achieved that, we can aspire to something more, but our objective is to stay up, it’s important to reiterate that.”

ALBARRACÌN AND RATERINK
“We have some good scouts: Gianluca Longo, Andrea Cossu, who is currently scouting for talent in South America, Roberto Muzzi, and Danilo Sancamillo. We’d like Albarracín to follow a similar path to Rodriguez, who became a starter after four months. Raterink is a player I was already following at Frosinone; we signed him because he’s an interesting player.”

ANGELOZZI IN CAGLIARI
“I’ve found a great atmosphere, I feel great here. Working in other clubs in the South, I was used to the warmth, but here they confirm it even more and always support us, even when we’re away. I have to thank them; they give me great support.”

COACH PISACANE
“I knew he had a great personality, and he’s confirmed it as a coach. In this role, he has to manage not only himself, but also the players, staff, press, and the club. He always comes out on top; he’s cheerful, transparent, and at the same time commands everyone’s respect. The strength of this team is the collective; we’ve lost key players to injury, yet we’ve never faltered; we’ve grown over time in the face of adversity. I’m partly surprised, because I know the value of the players and the staff; let’s keep going. I see what we’ve achieved from July until now; I’ve been impressed by this team’s ability to react, and credit must also be given to the coach. I admit there were some differences of opinion with Luperto, but those are matters of the pitch, and I won’t deny that the coach wasn’t in the mood to let Luperto go now, proving that even those previous confrontations were over. But the transfer market, as we know, presents you with developments, and so the club decided to sell the boy.”