First Team

Following the match against US Cremonese, Coach Alessandro Diamanti went to the press room at Orogel Stadium-Dino Manuzzi to answer questions from the journalists in attendance.

“It stings for the guys, because it was a solid, important performance, just as we’d prepared for it. I’m sorry, but as always, we move on: tomorrow is a day off, and on Monday we’ll get back to work. That’s who we are. I feel bad for the guys, because we deserved the win today. Period. End of story. Could we have handled those seven or eight minutes better? I don’t know, but honestly, it was an important match, and I’m very happy about that.”

“That’s soccer, guys—there’s not much we can do about it. We know it well, and you know it well. I’ll say it again: setting aside the individual players and specific incidents, I’m happy because the guys played an important game, both with and without the ball.

We dominated a very strong team for seventy minutes. Now we need to improve everyone’s fitness—it’s something we’re aware of, and they’re working hard on it. Let’s stick to our principles; tonight we saw that our principles hurt our opponents. Now let’s focus immediately on the next game—we’re already looking ahead to it—and then there will be more weeks to work and spend time together.”

“I think in the last ten minutes, both teams were tired because they’d given it their all. In the final minutes, we tried to play two balls to Debenedetti’s run. Anyway, I’ll say it again: I saw a strong team on the field that fought for every ball with spirit and identity. This is something that, I assure you, is priceless to me as a coach. I hope the people at the stadium tonight identified with this, because that’s what we’re talking about. I’m disappointed with the result, but as I’ve always said: when there are performances like this, the results matter little, because when you work hard, the results will follow—that’s a certainty.”

The full press conference is available on the official YouTube channel of Cesena FC: