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Sassuolo is not a revelation. Maybe second place is of Sassuolo, but not his game, nor his level, nor his quality. It is a precious team that has been recognized for years, that season after season releases pieces (at a high price …) and inserts others of the same level or even higher. It is a team that wins in San Paolo without three of its four best players, without Djuricic, Berardi and Caputo (the fourth is Locatelli).
De Zerbi is in the third championship with Sassuolo. He finished eighth last season, eleventh in 2018-19. The beginning of the growth of this team, however, dates back to a dozen years ago and it was contributed by coaches who later showed their value in other places as well, from Allegri to Pioli, to Di Francesco, the first to come back in Serie A the form of the game. De Zerbi summed up Sassuolo’s idea by directing it down a path that now arouses envy. For years he was considered a fundamentalist, faithful to a single creed, but this season if Sassuolo has reached the top of its maturity the same can be said of its coach..
WE CHOOSE HOW TO LOSE – There is a phrase, accompanied by a clear technical and tactical explanation, that establishes a basic concept of Roberto De Zerbi’s idea of football. After Napoli-Sassuolo 0-2 he said: «I don’t know if playing like this is enough to win, but at least we can choose how to lose.». This is the premise that illustrates the change, the end of the idea that Italian football was fed by De Zerbi’s account.. At San Paolo, Sassuolo deployed a three-man defense. «I lowered the pressure a bit because I respect my players. When you have Osimhen in front of you, you give him 50 meters of space behind and you don’t crouch, it means you have no respect for Ferrari and Chriches. Holding them up would have exposed them too much and not all players are the same. In any case we must be able to play three or two. It is the synthesis that, from the outside, we can define as change, but that has probably always accompanied De Zerbi. Except he had to wait for the right moment to show all his luggage.
THE INTEGRALIST WHO WAS NOT – When watching football from the stands, we rely too much on clichés. For example, Sarri: he always plays the same, he never changes, he is never contagious (in the football sense). And instead Sarri changes, and how. In Empoli, before reaching the diamond, at 4-3-1-2, he made the team play with 4-2-3-1. In Naples, before reaching 4-3-3, he fielded it with 4-3-1-2. However, for many (if not all) he was the faithful blind of a module. It is up to us outside observers and ordinary people to label them. So it is simpler, but it is a wrong operation, too narrow a synthesis of a larger thought.
THE SHOW – Sassuolo makes a show, as did the Empoli de Sarri. Playing well, as Bielsa says, is when people have fun and today if you see those neroverdi shirts you have fun, and how. It is profoundly different from Atalanta, another show-team in recent years. The Atalanta base is dynamic with technical grafts, the Sassuolo base is technical with dynamic grafts. In short, it is a pleasure that in Italian football there is a team like De Zerbi’s.
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