He was one of the longest-serving goalkeepers in the history of Italian football. Essential and concrete, he placed effectiveness and pragmatism before the spectacular nature of the athletic gesture. Marco Ballotta over the years has defended, among others, the goals of Inter, Parma, Lazio and Brescia. Always with the same reliability and continuity of performance.
Marco, in your opinion has the Serie A championship issued fair and acceptable verdicts regarding the fight to avoid relegation? Or has someone fallen to Serie B who, after all, didn’t deserve it?
“In the end the results reflect the reality of the facts. Frosinone’s relegation, honestly, surprised me a bit, because despite having accumulated a good margin of advantage, the yellow-blue eleven did not play their cards well. Then in the last match against Udinese it didn’t go the right way. The only comment I can make to the Ciociari coach is that, in some situations, his team thought more about playing well than bringing home the three points. When you fight to save yourself you necessarily have to be a little more concrete.
Cagliari, for their part, achieved not just a miracle, but something very similar. The real miracle was performed by Verona, who at a certain point actually seemed to be relegated; plus the team has completely changed its skin, because a lot of key players left in January. Nonetheless, Baroni managed to find the right fit, fielding a credible eleven every week and largely deserving, in the long run, his stay in Serie A. He even took the liberty of making Hellas play well in a situation of total emergency. In short, the Florentine coach accomplished a feat that he will certainly remember for the rest of his life.”
I ask you for a specific opinion on the future of Cagliari: the new coach will almost certainly be Davide Nicola, who will carry the label of deus ex machina of the fight for salvation when he takes over during the current season. In your opinion, will he be able to impress by shaping the team right from the pre-season training camp?
“Nicola is certainly a coach suited to leading teams that must maintain their category. This is beyond doubt. Of course, it must be admitted, he never had the opportunity to fight for different and more ambitious goals. In any case, I think he has the right experience to shake off this label that has accompanied him for too long. The coach, in general, must have time to shape his team from the beginning. I’m sure that Nicola is the right coach for Cagliari.”
Speaking instead of the rossoblù squad, where would you intervene most urgently to shore it up and improve it from a technical and character point of view?
“I say that Cagliari must be strengthened in all departments, if there is the possibility of doing so: last year the Sardinians risked relegation until the penultimate matchday, so there is certainly a lot to improve. If the club wants to suffer less it will have to operate well on the market: targeted reinforcements from defense to attack would be a panacea. We’ll see how the purchasing campaign goes; in the meantime, I repeat, it is essential to start again from a coach like Davide Nicola.”
