LECCE – Lecce is getting ready to restart its engines. Less than a week from the meeting in view of the start of the next season, the Giallorossi club is hard at work between the pitch and the market. Yesterday the list of players under contract who have been called to the headquarters was released. The players, in order to optimize the work of the technical, medical and trainer areas, will be divided into two groups. The first will meet on Monday 8 July while the second will meet on Thursday 11 July. The groups of players will undergo medical visits at the BioLab Center in Cutrofiano and field tests at the headquarters of the Acaya Golf Resort & Spa. The first group includes the players who form the core of the squad that will take part in the next Serie A championship. Lecce’s intention, in fact, is to hold on to the team’s best players and to sit at the negotiating table only in the face of offers that are economically satisfactory for all parties involved.
The list of players called up in the first group includes goalkeepers Falcone, Fruchtl and Samooja, central scorers Baschirotto, Esposito (Primavera added to the first team), Gaspar and Pongracic and defensive full-backs Dorgu, Gallo, Gendrey and Addo (also added from the Primavera). The largest department is the midfield, which includes Berisha, Blin, Gonzalez, Kaba, McJannet, Pierret, Rafia and Ramadani. Finally, in attack, there will be offensive full-backs Banda, Morente, Oudin and Pierotti, while among the centre-forwards there is only Krstovic. The list of players included in the second group, which will join three days after the first group, includes several names of players destined to leave Salento during the summer transfer market session, as they do not fit into the technical project of the Giallorossi club. The list includes goalkeepers Borbei, Brancolini and Viola, defenders Smajlovic, Lemmens and Venuti, midfielders Faticanti, Helgason, Maleh and Samek, attacking wingers Corfitzen, Daka (joined from the Primavera), Salomaa and Listkowski and forwards Burnete, Rodriguez, Sansone and Voelkerling Persson. Compared to the ordinary program, Banda and Krstovic will benefit from a permit from the club and will join the group on Sunday 14 July, while Berisha, Pongracic and Ramadani, busy with Euro 2024 with their respective national teams, will reach the pre-season retreat on Saturday 20 July. Finally, Corfitzen and Kaba will continue their individual recovery journey from their respective injuries.
The first training session of the pre-season retreat is scheduled for next July 14, when the team group will move to Neustift. In addition, an international friendly has been defined that the Giallorossi will play with Galatasaray SK, at the Raiffeisen Arena in Linz (Austria), as part of the Upper Austria Summer Series hosted by LASK, scheduled for Wednesday July 24 at 19:30.
In parallel with the topics relating to the pitch and the preparation that coach Luca Gotti will prepare for his team, discussions relating to the market are developing. These are days of apparent calm for Lecce who even before the official opening of the transfer market has already made four purchases official. It is reasonable to expect grafts in all departments, especially in defense and in the center of the attack, the two sectors that currently appear most devoid of alternatives. The Giallorossi club will then have to deal with the many requests that will arrive from the market for some of the most representative elements of the squad. Yesterday evening, at the Grand Hotel in Rimini, the Grand Gala for the official opening of the 2024/25 transfer market was held, which was also attended by the director of the technical area Pantaleo Corvino. In statements reported by Tuttomercatoweb, the Salento manager spoke about the market moves: «We have already concluded four purchases, those of Morente and Pierret had already been looked at during the season, Gaspar and Fruchtl were grafts in two areas where we needed them. We have more than one owner who has requests, but if the interested parties don’t come to tell us they want to leave, we will resist because we have the possibilities. Pongracic is highly sought after by Italian and foreign clubs, he is a truly important player. We would struggle to keep him if he came to ask us to leave, I hope that doesn’t happen».
