The draw at Schützenwiese against Winterthur left mixed feelings in the Bianconeri camp. At the end of the match, Mattia Croci-Torti analysed his team's performance, expressing regret at the points dropped and satisfaction at the character shown despite being a man down.
The coach first highlighted the difficulties of the match at Schützenwiese, a historically complicated ground for Lugano: We've never played well here in Winterthur, it's difficult to play football. They kick the ball up, we tried to play our game. The coach admitted that the team was not particularly dangerous in the first half, but the game had also been prepared with the idea of controlling it in the first half and being incisive in the second.
The decisive moment came with the sending-off and a few lapses in concentration: We started well in the second half, but unfortunately we then gave away two gifts. In football, giving away two gifts sometimes costs you the game, and today it almost cost us. Despite everything, Lugano reacted: In the end, we risked winning with ten men for almost more than twenty-five minutes. We showed that we wanted to stay in the game. We could have gone down, but instead we pressed them even with one man down.
However, the coach does not hide his disappointment: We gave away too many gifts, but I saw many positive things. Quality is not easy to find on this pitch; sometimes character counts more, and we demonstrated that.
Looking at the results of the two away games against the bottom two teams in the table, Croci-Torti is clear: It's not good enough for a team like Lugano that wants to stay at the top of the table. We're not happy. We wanted to come home with at least four points and we got two. At the same time, he emphasises the team's reaction: Our unbeaten run continues, we don't lose and we always react, but we want to get back to winning ways on Wednesday.
In fact, his gaze is already turned to the next match against Servette, which promises to be complicated, also due to absences in midfield: We'll come up with something, someone will adapt. We'll find solutions. Maybe there will even be some Under-21 players.
It's a clear message, somewhere between bitterness and confidence: the point in Winterthur isn't enough, but the character shown by the team remains a foundation on which to build for the next challenge.