Lugano will play its last home game of the regular season on Sunday, April 13, at 2:15 pm. Opponent will be St. Gallen.
DOS SANTOS RETURNS
Five players will not be available for the match: Bottani, Mahou, Aliseda, Belhadj and Valenzuela. Daniel Dos Santos, who had suffered a sprained ankle in the match against Winterthur in mid-March, by contrast returns to be drafted.
THE MOCKERY OF THE THREE ARBITRATION ERRORS
The pre-match press conference initially returned to last Sunday's controversial refereeing incidents in Basel. Rivers of ink have been written on the subject. Since this is not the first time do you think Lugano will receive a different kind of treatment from now on?
"I don't think so. Coldly, the circumstance that bothers me the most is that from the Cup final with Servette to today three times the referees come the next day to say they were wrong and always against us. There had been first the penalty hand foul with one minute left in the Cup final act, then the very clear penalty not whistled to Steffen at 0-0 in Yverdon (a game that later ended with the victory of the Vaudois), and now the Ajeti episode in the match that could have brought us to within one from the leader. In Basel we had entered the field well and for half an hour we had dominated: the expulsion of an opponent at that moment would have channeled the match in another direction. The referee notes of the following day make one sorry, one does not understand why no one from the VAR room could correct these situations in time, that's what hurts. In the end, we never made cinema or cried scandal. It's right not to create cases or make excuses but to see ourselves three times, 24 hours after the final whistle, justifying a mistake starts to be too much."
AKOLO AND WITZIG DANGEROUS
-To return to soccer played on Sunday you receive St. Gallen, who are practically on their last legs if they want to place in the top six of Super League. What opponent are you expecting from the start?
"When you have the water at your throat you necessarily have to win. So we will face a proactive team that will try in every way for the three points. St. Gallen, like us, has had a path in Europe that has not allowed them to win many points; they have also struggled, much more than us, to find consistency of performance. Since January they have included two important elements: Daschner who played in the Bundesliga (12 appearances before arriving in Switzerland) and Nsame known to all fans. They believed with these reinforcements that they had found the key and had put Akolo aside a bit, partly because of contract problems. If we look over the last few weeks the team instead depends a lot on the Congolese striker. St. Gallen has been trying lately to do something different.putting themselves in a three-man defense. The results are always a bit up and down. They are able to be down two goals to Basel and then tie it in the final ten minutes. At home they are maybe 0-0 then under their own curve, They overturn the result. They have people like Akolo and Witzig who can always make a difference. It will be important to be able to counter and block them."
REALISTIC BUT ALSO AMBITIOUS
-Is it fair to say that as of last Sunday, a new championship begins in the sense that with 7 points from the first and three other teams ahead, it is perhaps better not to think about the title anymore but more realistic to save one's skin?
"You always have to try to have and maintain a line. Ours from the beginning has been to try to score as many points as possible to get into the top six quickly. Even leading Basel had to wait until last Thursday to mathematically qualify for the title poule. It's never a given for anyone, and it still isn't for anyone except Servette, who managed it with two days left. Last year at this time the top four was already too far behind the rest of the group. It means that the league is even more balanced, if Basel made two missteps we could still be there. However, we must not look too far ahead or be overly negative. When you start having bad thoughts then something stays in your head. We just have to be able to stay ambitious and understand that in order to be ambitious we have to score points. That means giving a great performance with St. Gallen in front of our fans. If we want to finish in the top six, we have to collect at least three points in the next two games, and in a week's time we will face another team, Lausanne, almost with the water at our throats. That's the beauty of this formula: to arrive at this moment of the season already playing for something important."
YOU CAN'T SPECULATE ON THE EVEN
- You are a team that doesn't make calculations, you didn't even make them in Basel when you conceded their goal with half an hour to go when you might as well have thought about coming out of St. Jakob with at least a point. Sunday will also be like that isn't it that you say would be fine with a draw that would cut off your opponents?
"Hardly anyone who has played soccer and is a coach can decide the course of a game until a few minutes from the end. I think anyone who has played the sport knows that starting with an idea of a result can be dramatic in some ways. The important thing is to play every game proactively, trying to do something important. We are the first to have recognized the strength of certain opponents at the European level, I am thinking of Fenerbahce or Besiktas: there we did something different and entered the field without a role point. But in our status we cannot afford to do this at home against St. Gallen. We have to have a balance, then if with three minutes to go we realize that a point could take us into the top six we won't go on the assault like the Indians."
IN BASILEA COMUMNUNICATION ERROR
"The Basel goal seemed to be taken because we all just wanted to push toward their goal. In reality it was a goal conceded because of clear individual mistakes when, in the seconds before the decisive pass we were in numerical superiority. These are the team mistakes I talk about from time to time, in Basel we could have not committed it with communication. Certain things are seen only by the men behind: instead we made a wrong exit as happens when you press the goalkeeper forgetting that you then have a man less in the markings. We did not act accordingly and suffered their advantage."
IMPROVE WITHOUT THE BALL
-When I follow your team's games, and very often I enjoy them, there comes a time when I say to myself, it might be time now to let the ball go to others and try to manage the result. You, on the other hand, always want possession and this sometimes causes you to concede goals. Don't you also have that feeling?
"As long as I coach, my teams will always try to have possession of the ball. The problem is not giving it to others but simply that a game lasts 90 minutes and you can't always have the ball. You have to be better at defending when the ball is at the opponents' feet, and this year sometimes we were not. You have to be honest: in the past we had players with certain characteristics who liked to defend lower. I think of the first year when we fielded Maric, Daprelà and Ziegler at the back, people who made impregnating the penalty area their strength. We had seasons with different ideas and this one is still different, but when you don't have the ball you have to be more solid. But when you have possession it means the opponent does not have it. The talk then is to defend better when you don't have it, remembering that if they are better the possession will always be in their favor. We are pretty good at this exercise but the others with the ball are more dangerous than they should be if we defend better."
ONE TIME IN FULL
-In about 30 league games you have only once had a chance to line up the ideal formation. What feelings does this circumstance leave you with?
"As I always say there is regret when you don't have all the players available. We know that what we are lacking a little bit in the last few games are the subs who when called upon make a difference. We are a team that since it was built with a coach who is not Guardiola and who does not make a change in 90 minutes, but who believes in the whole group and knows that with more people available you can put opponents in trouble. In Basel the game, which was channeled in a single track in our favor, experienced the tear by the hosts thanks to the entry of certain players (I think of Kade and Kevin Carlos). Tear that we lately are not succeeding: however, one must try with the players available to put the best team on the field. Having Przybylko and Vladi on the bench is not like having Mahou or Aliseda, they have other characteristics and you have to try to play differently. That's why with these elements we should be better and stronger in the penalty area and in the centers, instead currently we are not."
UNHAPPY WITH THE SITUATION
-Turning back to injuries do you think at the end of the season as a coach you talk to the trainers and the medical staff?
"We talk every day. These are analyses that we have to do even when things are going positively, all the more so when things are not. We all have to work together from the storekeeper to the athletic trainer, from the masseur to the assistant, to the coach and have one goal, which is not to show off but to make the team win. Any moment that those in the locker room devote to the team has to be aimed at winning on the field, and so when things don't go well you have to be able to be self-critical, and I can assure you that there is self-criticism from us. Then there are things that can come out externally and there are things that cannot. But I can say that we are not happy with this situation."
WITH A KNOT IN HIS THROAT
-Did you follow last night's Conference League first leg match between Celje and Fiorentina and were you perhaps regretful ?
"Let's say that we had caught morons after losing in Slovenia but last night they took Fiorentina by storm the last 25′ and if De Gea in the final had not made three decisive saves the result would have been different. We in Celje had 66% possession and twice as many shots and yet they told us we were a team of morons. The violets go there, concede the ball to them and yet they are stronger than us. The truth is that they are more efficient teams than ours, we are lacking there this year. There is regret: until the 89th minute of the return match we should have been the ones to play in the quarters, but if we are not there it is because we made mistakes. Let's not look for excuses; we were not good enough. Does it hurt? yes. Do we need to become better? yes. Is the coach aware of that? yes. And last night he watched the game with a knot in his throat."