Fabiano Santacroce, a former footballer, spoke to La Domenica Azzurra on OttoChannel: “Whoever is hired as the new coach, it is essential to give time and autonomy to work with serenity, without influencing his choices. This year the Napoli coaches suffered too much interference from the president, who dictated formations and often intervened mid-match by going to the locker rooms. It is clear that by hiring someone like Conte or someone like Gasperini there is the risk that if things don’t go as they should they wouldn’t think for a moment about resigning.
Conte is a motivator, on a mental and physical level he destroys you, in a positive sense. I spoke with many players who had him as a coach and many loved him for the type of game he offers. Of course, in the long run it drives you to exasperation, he is a technician who looks at everything, from a technical, tactical, mental and behavioral point of view. He is a very strong coach, he would have a different grip compared to the Ancelotti experience, especially on the president. Now everything is in the hands of De Laurentiis, if one of Conte or Gasperini is hired the weight of the technical choices would fall on them and I wouldn’t mind at all given how it went this year. We need clarity in making the market, we need a coach with the attributes and ability to be rational in technical choices.
In the match against Roma, which Napoli deserved to win, Calzona made a quite obvious mistake when he inserted Ostigard at that moment of the match. In my opinion he also created some imbalances in that game situation. I wouldn’t have included him, or it would have made sense to send Ostigard onto the field but with the specific task of marking an opponent. Maybe Abraham. But in that way his inclusion perhaps disoriented the Azzurri defense. Unfortunately, Napoli’s flaw this year is marking, Napoli’s zonal marking system doesn’t work, they conceded too many goals. With Roma, Napoli created, attacked, we saw an orderly and pleasant game, undoubtedly the draw was undeserved but also due to too many goals being devoured.”
