Giuseppe Vives he has seen many during his long and respected career as a fighting and governing midfielder, but one scene has remained imprinted in his memory, dating back to the days of Torino. The former Neapolitan footballer played in the Granata shirt from 2011 to 2017 and in the last season something happened that he will never forget, starring the then coach Sinisa Mihajlovic and the unfinished talent Adem Ljajic. “The tables were flying in the air, the door was falling, it was destroying the whole room“, is the clear image that makes us understand the level of anger of the late Serbian coach towards his compatriot.
Vives’ story: Torino destroyed by Napoli, Mihajlovic brings the whole team into the meeting room
Vives rewinds the tape, we’re in the 2016/17 season: “We lost to Napoli 5-0. A very bad match. They really could have done ten because in the first half they were going at three thousand an hour. The next day we trained. Training ends and suddenly the coach in the corridor, as we are leaving: ‘No, don’t leave’. Some people arrived with little pizzas in boxes, he said: ‘No, let’s go into the meeting room’. But without notifying us of anything“.
Sinisa Mihajlovic at the time of Torino: he coached him from 2016 to 2018
A group viewing of the obscene match from the day before was staged in the room: “We entered the meeting room and nothing, he made us watch 90 minutes of the match again – Vives tells the podcast ‘DoppioPasso’ – the whole match without sound, so we had to watch 90 minutes of the match and we ate this pizza because it was lunch time“.
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Ljajic objects that he played “a great match”, Mihajlovic goes crazy
A small pizza that would have gone awry on someone shortly thereafter: “When there were like 3-4 minutes left until the end of the match, he says to his collaborator: ‘Turn on the lights a little’. And he says to Ljajic: ‘Adem, what kind of shitty game did you play?’. And Ljajic says: ‘No, mister, I played a great game’. As soon as he says ‘I had a great game’, I swear, the tables flying in the air, the door down, he was destroying the whole room. He didn’t accept that stuff. The coach was like that“.
