Gregoire Defrela striker out of contract with Sassuolo, during a long interview granted to L’Equipe, spoke thus of Roberto De Zerbi, his former coach in the black and green and next coach of Marseille:
“De Zerbi is a disciple of Guardiola, he often told us: ‘I hope you saw the City match’. He wanted us to observe his ball releases and advised us to watch the big matches in general. He didn’t want us to play too long with the ball , he really loves playing on the ground. He said he was happy when an action started from the goalkeeper and arrived cleanly in the opponent’s area after 50 passes. He can’t conceive of winning without this method, if we won games without playing as he wanted him, the next day there was a double training session. They had to do everything again, some players were fed up, but then the following Sunday, after winning in style, we said to ourselves “damn… this work pays off!”.
“I remember a speech after the launch of the Super League, he talked to us about it for an hour, shouting that football wasn’t that, and we won immediately after at Milan, one of the founding clubs. There was also the one after the death of Maradona spoke to us with emotion, he had conveyed something to us. His choice to sign for OM goes in this direction in the field”.
