Napoli coach Luciano Spalletti says he his goal is to continue playing as they have this season and that he doesn’t pay attention to the criticism. The Partenopei have been in scintillating form and could stretch their winning run to 12 games in a row, if they can overcome Rangers in the penultimate Champions League group stage match.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, the coach addressed suggestions he could rotate the squad and how he’s bought about this early success:
What difficulty do you think you’ll face against Rangers? What is the goal?
In all matches you have to give your best, the difficulties are to repeat it each time, put in all the necessary qualities, you have to go fast. Winning tomorrow could prove to be fundamental because it would allow us to get to play the match with Liverpool with 15 points and would allow us to use the goal difference in our favor, therefore victory would be fundamental for the last game “.
What about the turnover and subsitutions?
“I always choose training to win, not for turnover. On the possibility of having strong players even outside, it gives me the alternative of being able to play others too. In practice, we returned at 2am from Rome, in the morning at 11am it is difficult to develop training, even today those who played have had a diversified session and still have to recover and therefore having an even roster, we have the opportunity to change something and we will do it. We play 3-4 fresh players.”
At what point is growth in terms of awareness also in Europe?
“So far we can say that we are at a good level but we have always used the qualities we have, we have never been put into serious difficulty by opponents, but it concerns so far and we must not dwell on what has been done, but find a solution for what we can become and this requires us to be better and better and look for new solutions, because we have players who occasionally find above average moments, like Osimhen’s goal in Rome.”
Rome was a difficult climate for you, as a football man what can be done for the hatred towards Naples?
“You can remove barriers, I would try to get people without a fence, let’s see what they do, maybe it’s the fence that stimulates you to go beyond. Highlight what thousands of people who love football do, those who want to have fun and enjoy the show, and throw out the imbeciles who disturb and make a mess, those are in the minority, and give space to children who want to see sports. The stadiums are left as they were many years ago, they do not help…”
Does it bother you when you hear, very often, that Napoli did not deserve a victory?
“I don’t hear what others say. It is true we are first in different competitions, but it counts to be first for our fans, we have a duty to try to be first in everything we do, to represent our fans. If I respond to someone like Mourinho, with the history he has, if he says something I have to be careful to understand something else. We are happy with what we are doing..”
It’s a difficult period for Rangers between injuries and poor games…
“I have seen the last games, I have found many things they’ve done well, van Bronckhorst is a quality coach and knows how to find solutions. In the last game with Liverpool at the end of the first half it was 1-1 and they had other clear situations to score goals. It is a mistake to think of underestimate them, we will not do so. We will go to do our best otherwise it would mean not having the winning DNA.”
