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Here is what our coach had to say, as he commented on Roma’s return to the Champions League after a seven-year absence.
You’ve reached your goal, celebrated in front of the visitors’ section, hugged all your players, and then they started tossing you up in the air. How do you feel?
“Yes, it’s true, it was a wonderful night. It was hard because Verona played that kind of game we all saw. Paradoxically, we struggled more when they were down to 10 men. Maybe it was the tension, the urge to seal the win, we didn’t play as much as we could’ve. We could’ve capitalised on a few chances. But there was always the risk of conceding a goal on a set-piece.”
The team followed your instructions from the very first second. You won over Rome. Everyone was by your side even when things got very hard. You defended the team after losing at San Siro. The team really seem to be with you.
“As soon as I got here, I found a team that worked very hard. Everyone wanted to play a top-level season. It was very gratifying. We won over the critics, earned credibility and the stadium was always packed. In a way it was a difficult season, but not in my relationship with the team and the fans.”
Without the owners even asking you to, you set a very ambitious goal and reached it, by doing the opposite of what other fellow coaches have done.
“We’ve actually had few difficult periods. Throughout the whole season, what was hard was losing to Inter. I’ve seen how hard these players work, which is why I raised the bar. We lost many head-to-head matches in the first half of the season, while in the second half we drew many games and had the impression that we’d grown as a team. We took our chances. [Donyell] Malen joined the team and the team’s attack made a dramatic improvement. We lost many attacking players. We had few players up front and they were struggling. Those who always played gave it everything and responded well. We had to win all our remaining matches to qualify for the Champions League and we knew that. And we delivered when we needed to.”
Gasperini then had a few words for Cesc Fabregas, who had also joined the show live: “Congratulations to Como, who have played quality football and are very good, except when they start diving, though [laughs]. They’ve done a great job.”
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