The Rome of Naples, protagonist of a beautiful and unfortunate performance, disappears at the Olimpico and in the the semifinals of the Italian Cup goes to Ballardini’s Cremonese, who will face Fiorentina in April. On the evening of the Olimpico once again ‘sold out‘ Mourinho’s team shows its worst face and plays a game for a long time, if not always, unwatchable, losing against a team that has never won in the league yet and is last in the standings. In the Cup, on the other hand, he’s doing well and after Napoli, eliminated on penalties at the “Maradona”, he makes another excellent victim.
Squad problems for Mourinho
It will be that the controversies on the “Zaniolo case” have certainly not reassured the environment, it will be that, as Mourinho says, the Giallorossi squad is probably not equipped to face three competitions, and in fact the coach, almost wanting to prove it, sends promising young players onto the field, such as Tahirovic and Volpato, perhaps not still ready. If you add to this Kumbulla’s mistakesdazed to the point of deserving a substitution at the end of the first half, and of Celik, a fish out of waterit turns out that ‘Cremo’ is a deserved success perhaps to dedicate to the memory of one of this team who was first and foremost a great fan, Gianluca Vialli.
Useless goal by Belotti in recovery
Little pace, zero intensity, too much nervousness, maybe a little presumptuous thinking he’s already won. The fact is that Roma were unable to come up with a move worthy of the name, and the four changes made at the start of the second half were of no use, with the various Dybala, Smalling, Zalewski e Matic in the field, and then also the entry of Abraham, which only translated into a crowd with no outlets, apart from the useless goal by Belotti in recovery. Without quality, Roma conceded Dessers’ penalty in the first half, after a huge mistake by Kumbulla, and the former Feyenoord player who took revenge on who beat him in the Conference League final. He also went to cheer under the Curva Sud, unleashing the wrath of the Roma players.
L’autogol at Celik
The recovery began with l’autogol in Celik on Pickel’s initiative, Cremonese then held the field and played with good personality while Roma can only complain about a missed opportunity by Smalling. For the rest, complete darkness and a lot of disappointment on the part of the public, which could already be seen in the Cup final even if the opponents, including Cremonese, must first be faced.
Mourinho: “Deserved elimination”
On elimination from the Italian Cup Jose Mourinho he said: “We’re paying for a horrible first half, of a very low level. In the second half there’s another individual mistake that makes it 2-0, then my parents had a good reaction, but they defended well and we didn’t have luck We could have scored earlier, but me I learned not to cry over defeats“. Congratulations to the Cremonese “for a great victory, first against Napoli and then against us, they deserved to be in the semifinals”, Mourinho returns to the theme, dear to him, of rose of his Rome that he judges “short”: “he struggles to play with rotations and struggles to play three games in a week. But with a first half played like this, we deserved to be eliminated”. While to those who ask him if he regrets not having started, he replies: “If Paulo had played as a starter today and then got injured, if we were in the semifinals but we didn’t have Dybala for a month it would have been a problem”.
Ballardini: “I didn’t expect such a race from Cremonese”
“We played a good match, then against a great team like Roma you also need a bit of luck, but we deserved it by putting in a top-level performance – said Davide Ballardini -. I didn’t expect such a race from Cremonese, we kept the pitch well, we played a good game for me. I look at Cremonese’s home, if Roma have demerited, whoever coaches Roma will look at it”.
“They’re all dry games”
“When we have the ball we want and try to play – added the Grigiorossi coach -. Since we arrived, our request has been to play when we have the ball and to try to win it back when the opponents have it. do you need to score points also in the championship? For us at this point of the season they are all dry matches. We will try to have this team attitude, otherwise the difficulties will increase. They will all be inside or outside matches.”