A satisfied Luciano Spalletti appeared before the microphones of Sky Sport a few minutes after the victory against Leicester which took his Napoli to the next stage of the Europa League as second in their group.
“Today they gave me great satisfaction – said the coach from Certaldo -. We won showing character and soul: we had conceded two goals in situations where we should have been more convinced, but we reacted well on the pitch in the second half, scoring immediately. I can only compliment the personality of my boys, in football at this level the opponents are all strong and a victory like this was needed and will give us great strength to show all our qualities in the future”.
“Elmas? A wonderful person, who knows how to adapt to any role,” Spalletti said of the Macedonian player, who scored twice. “You can move him to the right or left, he always manages to come up with something. At the end of the first half he was unhappy about several things, I promised him I would lie down on the ground if he scored. I held back, but I didn’t (laughs, ed.). He has played 29 games for club and country, more than Di Lorenzo, he is very important for us.”
“Politano’s condition? Unfortunately, it happens when you play every three days that you feel bad, he wasn’t well but I could have risked him in the last minutes – added the coach -. In the end he didn’t come on because we had to defend the lead. Luckily Manolas was fine and helped us in that phase, I have many players like him who still have to recover from injuries or Covid. It’s really tough like this”.
Finally, a final joke about the penalty missed by Legia in the 98th minute that could have brought the Azzurri to first place in the group: "I don't know how much luck has to do with it, and above all I don't know how the others are doing. But I consider myself very lucky: if the others are too, we'll draw at most".
Vincenzo Scarpa
Article published on 9 December 2021 - 21:45
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