Stefano Vecchitechnician of Vicenza, met the press, in view of the match against Taranto, scheduled for tomorrow at 8.30 pm, at the “Erasmo Iacovone” stadium. These are the words, reported by the official red and white website: “The fact of having remained still until today has also allowed us to recover the whole group and allowed us to recover our energy. From a mental point of view we must immediately immerse ourselves in the role and returning those from 15 days ago or in any case those who have made an important journey up to 15 days ago, so from this point of view we are ready.
Taranto has this strength, that of a team of great tenacity, a team that is very organized from a defensive point of view. Certainly in the last 8 matches, it seems to me that they have never conceded a goal at home, so like all the teams that will face each other from now until the final they will be tough matches and teams.
Are we aiming for Serie B? I think that’s the goal of everyone who takes part in the play-offs, otherwise we could have stayed at home. We have had this objective since we arrived, that is to build something important to then get to the play-offs and play in them as protagonists. Tomorrow we start and start to reach the final goal.
No calculations? We are not a team capable of making calculations, we have to think, as we said, not even over 180 minutes, but one half at a time and one half at a time giving our all and our best.
As I said before, the mental aspect will be very important, because we have to immediately get into a hot environment, against a team that has proven to be a strong team, because without the penalty points the runners-up would have come. Throughout this journey, from when we arrived until today, we have shown that we have become strong, that we are a strong team, so much so that even their coach said that we are and that he didn’t have an easy draw.
Proia and Rossi? Proia is still out, Rossi is recovered, he’s not 100%, but he’s recovered, like everyone else.
Play the game? We must think about the performance as we have always done, we must continue to be what we have been up to now, that is, a team that has played to win every match, but which has also proven to be a balanced team. We have followed this path up to now, thinking about performance, thinking about team spirit, trying to involve everyone and therefore as a strong group and team that we have become, let’s go and play these playoffs. Then we are certainly up against a good level team, but we continue on our way, without making calculations, because as I said before we are not capable of it, we have to give the best performance possible.
Stadium with 10,000 seats and a few reserved for the people of Vicenza, first time in a hostile environment? As a man of sport, I wonder how it could be that their guest sector is closed and we can still play, but I deal with the field and not with these aspects honestly. This team has already shown that it knows how to play in hostile environments, even when I arrived, the environment was hostile, with our fans booing us and criticizing us and despite this the team has shown that it has incredible strength in coming out of this situation. Our fans are now on our side and I say that they also, rightly, criticized us because the team then demonstrated that it had values that were sensationally superior to what it was showing on the pitch. So this team has already demonstrated that it knows how to play in a hostile environment and has demonstrated that it knows how to come out and be able to bring an environment together again, giving new hope to the city and to our fans who truly deserve so much. We have seen as we continue that together with them the team on the pitch is stronger and with the public supporting us, we all truly become a strong environment.
Var? We had a chat, we showed some episodes that happened in these Lega Pro matches and now we say that the anomaly is that it doesn’t exist, because in any case we all watch football with VAR, when they are sitting on the armchair at home. Certainly, in general, the VAR is an element of justice, an element that limits errors, despite this we have seen that sometimes they can still happen, the way to go on the pitch is always that you have to stay within the regulations and you have to just pay attention to the fact that there are a few extra eyes.
Don’t get nervous? We have also proven to bring even those that can be tested back into balance. Even more so, the presence of the VAR can also raise the antennas of the referees, of those who judge these episodes, but both for and against, because in any case very often some of our players are also penalized a little because they are considered provocative players or something like that but in reality they are not. It’s part of the game, we have to be good at this too, but we’ve already done it. Apart from a couple of episodes since I’ve been there, everything else went smoothly.”
