Wayne Girard of ASRomainEnglish gives a look ahead to Roma’s next Serie A match
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On Saturday, Milan Manager Sinisa Mihajlovic held his pre-match press conference ahead of the rossoneri’s visit from Torino on Saturday. Milan is riding an undefeated streak of eight matches, and coming off a draw at the San Paolo in Napoli, the Serbian hopes they will continue their recent run of form. Here is what the tactician had to say to the media, courtesy of acmilan.com.
With his opening comments, Mihajlovic established the importance of the match against Torino:
“Tomorrow we have to try and win at all costs. The next 3 or 4 matches will be crucial for our season. We cannot afford to drop any more points against teams that we should be beating on paper. We need to cut the gap in the table so we are in the running for third place come the final stage of the season. We need to keep on this track. We have picked up draws away at Napoli and Roma while we won at home to Fiorentina and Inter. We need to win tomorrow’s match.“
He complimented his squad after earning a draw against Napoli:
“The credit is down to the players. They need to keep giving their all while my role here is to manage them.“
He also complimented the Toro and showed his respect for the opposing manager, Giampiero Ventura:
“Quite rightly, Giampiero Ventura is psyching his players up for the match, which is what I have to do as well. It will be a difficult game. I have a lot of respect for Ventura and I like the way his teams play. Torino are a strong side and they pass the ball around well. Toro are very dangerous in attack and if anyone thinks it will be an easy match tomorrow, they are sorely mistaken. “
Mihajlovic also spoke of the previous match with Torino, and laid down his expectations for improvement in this leg of the fixture:
“In the corresponding fixture earlier in the season, we threw away the 3 points. They equalised with their first shot on target and we weren’t able to restore our lead. We need to exact revenge for that match. We are a team with spirit. We always believe and are never out of the contest. But we need to improve in killing off matches. For this reason, I continue to repeat that the substitutes play a vital role. You should always try and go for the win. I always expect a lot from those coming off the bench… I try to instill the team with a sense of calm and confidence. Balance is needed in the good and bad times. That applies to the team but also to other areas of the club.“
Cristian Zapata, after his strong performance against Napoli and Gonzalo Higuain, earned a great deal of praise from the manager:
“Zapata offers something different to the other centre-backs we have available. Based on physical presence and speed, he is one of the best in the world. But sometimes he loses his concentration. I have spoken to him on a lot of occasions and I am happy he is now one of our better performers. I have given him a hard time about staying focused. But like he showed versus Napoli, when he is on his game, there’s no contest.“
The Rossoneri manager also gave praise to his squad and set his sights on continually improving:
“We have shown that we have nothing to fear when it comes to the sides ahead of us. We just need to pick up more points against the so-called smaller teams. In the first part of the season we struggled against the big teams but we haven’t lost to any in the second half of the season. For us both phases of play are important to us. Even from set pieces we have improved and we are conceding fewer goals compared to the past. From the outside, many might have thought that we would fall apart after the first match with Napoli this season. But being on the inside, I had a different view. I knew we were just missing that little something to turn the situation around. I knew we would manage it. I had hoped to resolve our problems earlier, but I knew I would be able to. The lads did well to never lose belief and to keep on working. We are on the right track.”
He spoke of his group of goalkeepers:
“Diego Lopez when he played wasn’t able to perform to his best because of a few injury problems. I then spoke to Abbiati for his opinion when I was thinking about giving Donnarumma his chance. I saw his potential in training, but I was worried about throwing him into the fray too young. I then understood how strong he was mentally. We decided together to hand him his chance and you could see his immense qualities.“
He also had comments about Mario Balotelli:
“Balotelli did fairly well versus Napoli. It is all down to him. If he plays, he has to always give 100%. He needs to play with the right attitude and the rest will come.“
The Serbian also talked about midfielder Andrea Bertolacci:
“Bertolacci has had an injury this season which has hampered him. He needs to be shown confidence and he needs to dare a bit more out on the pitch. He is aware of this. He is an important player for us and I am sure he will do well.“
He talked about where he wishes the club to be:
“In recent years, Milan have been off the pace, but we are always trying to improve, but time is needed to reach certain standards. We also want to be at the levels of Bayern Munich and Barcelona, but they are two teams that are currently on a different planet.“
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After today’s final training session, Milan coach Sinisia Mihajlovic called up 23 players for tomorrow’s match.
Goalkeepers: Abbiati, Donnarumma, Livieri
Defenders: Abate, Alex, Antonelli, Calabria, De Sciglio, Romagnoli, Simic, Zapata
Midfielders: Bertolacci, Bonaventura, Mauri, Kucka, Locatelli, Poli
Attackers: Bacca, Balotelli, Boateng, Honda, Menez, Niang
Injured: Luiz Adriano, Mexes, Rodrigo Ely, Diego Lopez
The probable Starting XI: Donnarumma, Abate, Alex, Romagnoli, Antonelli, Honda, Kucka, Bertolacci, Bonaventura, Bacca, Niang
*Note: Alessio Romagnoli makes his return in the heart of the defense, also Andrea Bertolacci is the most likely candidate to replace Riccardo Montolivo who is serving his one game suspension due to yellow card accumulation”
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After flopping at Chelsea, Cuadrado returned to Italy to get his career back on track. Juventus would be the team to provide him a lifeline and he has since emerged as one of the side’s most important players. Every season there’s typically one player who has stepped up for the bianconeri and delivered crucial performances en route to the Scudetto. In 2011-2012, it was Alessandro Del Piero’s free kick against Lazio along with Marco Borriello’s goal against Cesena that did the job. The next year it was Emanuele Giaccherini’s stoppage time winner against Catania that would put the nail in the coffin for Napoli’s Scudetto hopes. Is Juan Cuadrado Juventus’ latest Scudetto man?
The former Chelsea man would start the season quick out of the gates with impressive performances against Manchester City and Genoa. As Juventus struggled, however, Massimiliano Allegri went with the tried and tested 3-5-2 and would opt for Stephan Lichtsteiner more often than not. To be fair, the Swiss international is as good a wingback as there is in the world and offered guarantees that Cuadrado simply couldn’t. Recently, on the other hand, Cuadrado has been getting the nod and has shown signs of serious progress.
In addition to being his usual silky self when in possession, the Colombian international is now tactically aware and has made immense strides in the defensive zone as seen through his most recent performances. Moreover, Cuadrado offers Juventus something no one else in the team can. His speed and unpredictability, both on and off the ball, means the Italian champions can give him the ball and kick into another gear. In tight games such as the ones against Genoa and Frosinone, this is huge.
When Juventus were struggling to break down Genoa in midweek, Cuadrado received the ball on the edge of the box, beat his defender with a lovely body feint and took off. Genoa’s Sebastian De Maio would then rifle the winger’s drilled cross into his goal giving Juventus the three points. When the bianconeri took on Frosinone they were increasingly difficult to break down as they packed the middle of the park with numbers and gifted Juventus the wings. Enter Cuadrado.
The former Fiorentina man got on the end of Alex Sandro’s cross and fired the ball past Nicola Leali into the back of the net. Cuadrado would finish the game with eight, yes eight, successful take-ons and he’d go on to suffer seven fouls. Once again, the Juventus man was a game-changer and injected life into the side. At the moment, the 27-year-old sits on three goals and four assists on the season. Of those three goals, two are match-winners including the one in stoppage time in the derby against Torino that started this winning streak.
In just a few days, Juventus will welcome Inter to the Juventus Stadium. At the moment, Roberto Mancini’s side have struggled but always give Juventus a tough game. Allegri’s side, by contrast, have been in exceptional form themselves and are just coming off a come from behind draw against German giants Bayern Munich in the Champions League. With Juventus looking to extend their lead at the top and Inter trying to keep their season alive, this edition of the Derby D’Italia has calcio fans licking their lips. And one would expect Cuadrado to play a big role in it.
While there’s still a lot of football to be played before someone is crowned champions, Cuadrado appears to be Juventus’ (not-so) secret weapon and is ready to etch his name in bianconero history.
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In an interview with Sky Sports, via TuttoJuve, Leonardo Bonucci spoke about Juventus’ comeback up the Serie A table:
At a certain point, it changed the attitude of the team. The younger and newer players have understood what it means to wear, sacrifice and fight for this shirt. Us older ones have rolled up our sleeves and brought back humility and sacrifice to make it clear to the new, young and even ourselves that we could not be seen as the Juventus from September-October.
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Italian players have always been known to prefer to stay and play in the Serie A instead of playing in other leagues. However, there are several, still active Italian players, like Marco Verratti, Thiago Motta, Domenico Criscito, and Salvatore Sirigu who have played successfully in foreign countries and prove that the opposite is also true.
In fact, even before most of these players have joined their foreign clubs, there have been lots of Italian players that have played some of their best football outside of Italy. This list of players is quite fascinating and very much resembles the list of Microgaming casino reviews and bonuses. The only exception is that the Microgaming list is much longer and includes over 140 enticing casino bonuses.
If you are in the mood of trying out your luck in some of these top notch online casinos you can visit here and see whether you’ll be as successful as a lot of Italian players have been when playing abroad.
And because there have been so many successful players in foreign leagues, when trying to compile a list of only 5 Italian players one must eliminate remarkable players like Roberto Di Matteo, Gianluca Zambrotta, Demetrio Albertini, Fabrizio Ravanelli and many others, who would normally be part of any top 5 list made.
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