With the away victory against Pisa by 3-0, the As had momentarily placed itself in fourth position, catching up to Roma y Juventuswho however won both their matches. But the Lariani have one less game: if next Thursday they beat the Milan in the postponed match, fourth place – the one worth the Champions– would be yours.
FabregasDeep down, he knows that it is legitimate to dream, although for now he still does not want to talk about classification: “I swear I never look at it. Today someone from the staff told me and I said: enough. I don’t like it, it’s not our time to talk about this goal,” he declared in the post-match match. Pisa. The numbers of your AsHowever, they are from the top zone: fourth best attack with 26 goals scored and, above all, the best defense of the championship along with the Romawith only 12 goals conceded. There lies the originality of the As of Fabregas.
Part of the Italian press denigrates him, pigeonholing him in the category of “coaches-philosophers who want to make football more complicated than it is.” ItaliaIn terms of football, it is a historically traditionalist and reactionary country. Just think that the technicians of the big teams are the same ones that have been rotating for 10 or 15 years: Allegri, Spalletti, Conte…
Fabregas It’s new, and it’s a bit annoying. Also annoying because As It does not have a single Italian in the squad. But if Italia runs the risk of being left out of the World for the third consecutive time, perhaps we should ask more about the country’s poverty of talent than about the supposed will of Fabregas to avoid Italian footballers.
It is true: the As He spent a lot in the summer, more than 100 million. And perhaps that is why we cannot speak of a fairy tale or a miracle. But we must also analyze how that money has been invested: not in players with an international profile, ready to immediately make a difference in a championship as demanding as the Italian one; but in talents with very high potential who, in practice, are experiencing their first experience as starters in a professional league.
It is the case of Jacobo Ramonwho last year barely played three games with the Real Madrid; or that of Jesus Rodriguezformed at Betis; either Addaisigned from THE Alkmaar after a season with only one goal (this year he already has three). He As bets on talent, inserts it into a dominant, brave and modern game system, and enhances it until it prepares it for the elite: it is the path of Nico Pazwhich is expected to return this summer Real Madrid.
But the exceptional nature of the work of Cesc It is appreciated that not only
is helping the boys to grow – humanly, technically and tactically – in an extraordinary season for footballers like Ramón o Perrone (2003 midfielder signed from City for around 13 million euros); at the same time, Fabregas is making them competitive against the country’s superpowers like Milan, Roma y Juveclubs with ambitions and resources – especially in salaries – very different from those of the already rich As. And it does so with a style that could be defined as an Italian-Spanish hybrid, like a lunch in which tapas starters are followed by a plate of tomato spaghetti.
On the one hand, his As It is an ideologically Spanish-based team: a lot of control of the ball, players trained for this type of football, the goalkeeper Butez used as another midfielder and not a meaningless ball. On the other hand, it also represents the quintessence of Italian football: the obsessive care of the defensive phase.
He As It has the best defense in the championship, but it defends in a way that has nothing to do with the historic “catenaccio”. On the contrary: defend by attacking, with the most intense pressing of the Serie A (it is the team with the lowest PPDA in the championship, an indicator of the intensity of the pressure) and recovering the ball with ferocious aggressiveness.
Fabregas He seems to have understood that, in Italy, to succeed it is not enough to bring your ideas: you have to adapt them to the cultural context of the country. And he is doing it brilliantly, despite the totally unfair criticism from those who, after the 4-0 defeat against Inter, had called him an extremist incapable of adapting his football to different scenarios.
Protected by the Prealpes Comascos, there is a group of young people who, together with their coach, are dismantling the prejudices that permeate Italian football. In the distrust that surrounds them, in the antipathy they generate, evidence is hidden: they are on the right path. And they must not stop dreaming.
Worth a look
