LECCE – For Luca Gotti, the match against Udinese will be the “match of his heart”. Not just any match. The second in a row against one of his former teams. In Cagliari (the team played on Sunday), however, the 56-year-old coach from Adria worked for just one season, in 2010/2011, as Roberto Donadoni’s replacement and assistant.
A completely different story between the current trainer of Lecce and the Friulian club, where he arrived in 2019/2020, after further experiences with Parma (from 2012/2013 to 2014/2015) and with Bologna (where he collaborated with Pantaleo Corvino, from 2015/2016 to 2017/2018), always as second to Donadoni himself, and with Chelsea (2018/2019), as technical collaborator of Maurizio Sarri.
Also in Udine, Gotti arrived with the role of deputy, in this case of Igor Tudor. The coach from Split’s adventure, however, lasted just ten rounds. Then his relationship with the company chaired by Franco Soldati was interrupted and the Venetian trainer was called to take over. Initially on an interim basis, awaiting the choice of a replacement. Furthermore, Gotti himself had said he was available to take on the role only for a short period, out of a spirit of service, wanting to return to wearing the role of “second”. But within the Juventus management the idea of confirming the coach from Adria until the end of the competitive year slowly made its way and so it happened to everyone’s satisfaction as Udinese placed in thirteenth position.
Gotti’s career as a top-flight trainer began like this, almost by chance. Given the positive performance of the team in 2019/2020, the Udinese leaders renewed their trust in the coach also in the following season, the 2020/2021 season, which ended with the Friulian eleven finishing in fourteenth place.
The 2021/2022 A tournament also began with Gotti on the Udinese bench, but this time the journey ended on the sixteenth matchday. From the following round, his place was taken by Gabriele Cioffi, his deputy.
On Sunday, at the end of the match against Cagliari, when asked how he would experience the match against Udinese, the Lecce coach glossed over, cutting it short: «In the meantime, I’m enjoying the point I won against the Sardinians. Then, when training resumes, I will start thinking about the next match against the Friulians.” A comparison that is unlikely, for him, to be like many.
Gotti managed eight players at Udinese during the period in which he led the Juventus complex. One, striker Gerard Deloufeu has been unavailable for months. The others are the goalkeepers Marco Silvestri and Daniele Padelli (but Fabio Cannavaro is preferring Maduka Okoye), the defender Nehuen Perez, the midfielders Walace Souza Silva, Lazar Samardzic and Roberto Pereyra, the striker Isaac Success.
On Monday, before kick-off, snapshots of the experiences he had with the Pozzo family’s club will probably pass through Gotti’s mind. Then, once the match has started, he will be concentrated as always on the performance of “his” Lecce, on the moves to make during the match, on how to give arithmetic permanence to a “Via del Mare” that can’t wait to explode joy.
Alexis Blin and his teammates, meanwhile, returned to work yesterday afternoon, having archived the two days of rest they had available after the trip to Cagliari. Full-back Valentin Gendrey and winger Nicola Sansone followed a personalized programme. The former Bologna player suffers from a muscular problem which will probably need to be evaluated in the next few hours. An afternoon training session is scheduled today at the Acaya Golf Resort.
The international Davide Massa of the Imperia section has been designated to direct the direct clash between Lecce and Udinese, who will be assisted by assistants Davide Imperiale of the Genoa section and Fabiano Preti of the Mantua section. Fourth official Matteo Marchetti of the Ostia Lido section.
MEETING WITH THE MINISTER As anticipated in the press conference, President Saverio Sticchi Damiani met, in Rome in the morning, the Minister for European Affairs and Cohesion Policies Raffaele Fitto, who specified, with reference to the first tranche of financing for the works for the Games of the Mediterranean which will affect the Via del Mare Stadium, which the already approved amount of 11.3 million has also obtained approval from the Court of Auditors.
Regarding the possibility of further functional financing for the construction of the roof of the Via del Mare Stadium, for which President Saverio Sticchi Damiani made an express request, Minister Fitto said he was willing to support this request and to involve, for this purpose , the Minister of Sport and the Commissioner for the Mediterranean Games Massimo Ferrarese, to ensure that the same falls within the scope of a further decree that could intervene within a few months.
