A team extinguished by D’Aversa, with a smile to be found together with Luca Gotti.
Lecce is an open, proactive and smiling game but consequently vulnerable and always with its sides exposed just like the Salento area, overlooking two seas, exposed to all sorts of dangers and bad weather.
(In the stands2020)
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1 point from 13th place and with a margin of one length over first place which would mean relegation. After 28 days of Serie A, there would be nothing rationally inexplicable in seeing the Lecce where it is, in the stormy waters of the safety zone. There is nothing objectively unexpected, for better or for worse, in a Giallorossi team at the mercy of the winds and gusts that even just a draw or a direct clash can generate.
So why, in the very early afternoon of a Sunday in March, Antonino Gallo returns to the changing room tunnel in tears? She has not just returned from a week troubled by a family bereavement, she is not the victim of a serious injury that would jeopardize her career or even just the end of the season. Why does she walk those barely a hundred meters with labored breathing, her tears streaming down his face in spite of herself, her lips pursed?
Antonino Gallo, one of the – if not il – better than Lecce at the beginning of 2024, it was only and only replaced. In the 70th minute of Lecce-Verona, at 0-1, Roberto D’Aversa decided to focus on the athleticism and physical arrogance of Patrick Dorgu on the left wing. Substitute own Gallo, own in that match, it was perhaps the technical straw that broke the technical camel’s back. The point of no return of a management undertaken not with the best auspices, continued with an unexpected honeymoon and ended with a divorce with dark contours. The one against Hellas was in all respects the first defeat in a direct clash in this Serie A, but it is everything that led to Folorunsho’s goal and the celebration with the high crest of the former Bari player, the miracles of Montipò and the whistles of Ettore Giardiniero-Via del Mare that weigh more than points in the standings.
A wedding that didn’t have to happen
Roberto D’Aversa is a coach with a worthy CV but not from the same score as Sticchi Damiani’s club. The extremely speculative and reactive experiences – regardless of the results – of Parma and Genoa on the Sampdoria side have not, however, precluded the arrival of the coach born in Stuttgart to replace Marco Baroni, protagonist of the rejection of the contract renewal proposal last summer and fatally last neighbor of the D’Aversa from Lecce. Lecce and the Giallorossi fans have always been grateful and fond of fun, lively and engaging teams. Without prior support and not even a remote possibility – never really imagined, in the ideal of a place aware of never having won anything and not inclined to believe in future miracles – of results, dirty victories and hard-earned points.
A fan base and a territory that create team identity and personality around concepts such as bravado, boldness and vague recklessness. For a team traditionally dressed in the role of David in Goliath’s football, it was those who did it without fear or hesitation that was exciting. The years of Zeman, Delio Rossi and Carletto Mazzone were full of applause. Those of Bolchi, Sonetti and Papadopulo, even if they culminated with a promotion to Serie A, were poorly digested, with protests even after championship victories and immediate dismissals at the first stumbles in Serie A. Still others, like Serse Cosmi’s 2011/12, were the maximum expression of going beyond the result, with 6000 Salento people away applauding the players in tears after the decisive defeat at the Bentegodi against Chievo.
“These images are an absolute pleasure for those who love football and sport. Because today the Lecce fans demonstrated that they know how to lose.”
If nothing concrete and effective is evident, table in hand, compared to the last two Serie A championships, what must D’Aversa’s 28 games at the helm of Lecce have meant for the Salento universe? The position in the table – albeit with a smaller gap from the relegation zone – is the same (16th) as in 2022/23, the points are the same (25) as in 2019/20. The trend of the year is also comparable: start full of enthusiasm and euphoria – D’Aversa nominated Coach of the Month in August and 21 points in the first round, a record in the history of Salento; results that fail despite performances that would have deserved more profitable ones; collapse of offensive and scoring effectiveness, with consequent comeback of the pursuers through direct comparisons.
Constants and variables
What has not changed from the beginning of the season to today are the two trademarks, safeguarded with pride and heartfelt claims by the management both in the summer and during the repair market. The salary amount is the lowest in the entire category (€15.29 million gross, via Transfer market) and themiddle age – thoughtful for minutes played – they are second in Serie A only to Frosinone (the Ciociaria players are 24.8 years old, the Salento players are 25.6). Frosinone, the most suitable yardstick in terms of starting over the top and continuing to the limits of the reverse, however continues to preach a coherent footballing expression, even at the cost of scratching around a little and badly. Lecce, with its high pressure and instinctive plays at the beginning of the season, has instead transformed itself into a defeatist, predictable Lecce, sad.
The numbers aseptically explain the asphyxiated Giallorossi attack: in the first 28 outings, Lecce are second to last in Serie A in terms of goals/shots (0.06, only Empoli does worse). The figure is not the result of a drastic drop, also because on balance the most tangible upgrade from the last season (Ceesay-Colombo) to the current one (Krstovic-Piccoli) was recorded in the center forward position. The figures and percentages in the non-possession phase tell the story of the double face of D’Aversa’s Lecce. Second Understatin the first 13 matchdays Lecce was 2nd in Serie A PPDA: only Napoli allowed fewer passes per defensive action than the Salento players (10.24), emblematic of the desire to attack the opponent in any area of the pitch and ensure that they attack a moving defense, unprepared to manage such a high and impetuous reconquest. At the beginning of December, similarly, Wladimiro Falcone declared that he was not thinking about a call-up to the national team despite being, in terms of total saves and differential between expected goals conceded and goals conceded per game, in the same conversation as Sommer and Di Gregorio for the award for best goalkeeper in Serie A. At the beginning of March, the picture has radically changed.
From December 1st to today, Lecce is 10th for PPDA (12.35). From 1 December to today, Falcone is among the top fullbacks for total saves (88 saves in the season, 1 less than league leaders Di Gregorio) but average for PSxG per 90′ (-0.04, between Szczęsny and Martinez). In a nutshell, Lecce creates and concedes shots in approximately the same way, but defends much less aggressively and the goalkeeper saves much less. Nothing new compared to the year of Baroni and that of Liverani, which ended in a different way but with the bold DNA and proud nature, also in defending one’s position around Baschirotto-Umtiti, of whom all of Lecce legitimately fills their mouths until to gorge themselves.
An announced end
Yet, the alleged headbutt to Thomas Henry was useful to the Apulian club only to facilitate the termination of the existing contract with the former Lanciano coach – the formula of the official press release, “relieved from office“, does not clarify whether Roberto D’Aversa was exempted from contractual obligations or fired for just cause, as the coach violated the rules of the US Lecce Code of Ethics – and don’t put off any longer a decision that the rest of the environment already had solicited after the 0-4 designer from Lautaro’s brace.
The doubts about the D’Aversa-Lecce consonance, also the result of the distortion of perspective caused by the proximity of the ducal and Sampdoria experiences, have been confirmed. Whether it was the surprise effect, the enthusiasm of a deeper group and with more replacements than the previous year, made up of profiles little or not at all known to Italian football (Almqvist, Krstovic, Kaba, Banda, Dorgu…) ? Was it the underestimation of the summer departures (Hjulmand and Umtiti) and the overestimation of an even younger group, with potentially even wider margins for growth but with more unstable tactical and emotional balances? Whether it was the recklessness of overturning unforeseeable matches against opponents of another caliber (Lazio, Milan, Fiorentina) and the failure to recognize major structural gaps, where the sum of Ramadani’s geometries and Kaba’s physicality did not match Hjulmand’s viscerality in in the middle of the pitch and has the movement of captain Baschirotto to the centre-left exacerbated the shortcomings in the construction of the 27-year-old from Isola della Scala?
Nobody discusses the absolute value of Pantaleo Corvino and Stefano Trinchera. The former Fiorentina manager does not need further certifications to confirm his status in the elite of the Italian DS, and the construction of the 2022/23 Lecce omnia is the latest effigy. However, the ability to plan, put into perspective, contextualize and adapt the future ahead does not preclude possible errors of evaluation, an integral part of human work. In July 2023, the Salento management loudly supported that the transfer alone obvious of Hjulmand allowed us to make 3/4 targeted and valuable purchases, and Lecce’s first leg was confirmation of this. In January 2024, however, the message filtered through statements to the press and from the incoming and outgoing operations it was that the team did not need to be reinforced. The only noticeable shock, felt following the indications of the technical staff, was the transfer of captain Strefezza to Como, considered not to be the winger with leg and explosiveness imagined in the long field attack by D’Aversa, replaced numerically by only Santiago Pierotti. Since the end of the January session, Corvino and Trinchera have no longer appeared in front of the microphones, leaving the president Sticchi Damiani to put his face forward for everyone.
The face – or rather, the forehead – D’Aversa put it, fearing the desire to respond in kind to Thomas Henry. A coach, even if only in intentions and not in action, who lowers himself to the level of a player who entered exclusively to dirty a game soaked in slime with even more mud cannot fail to represent nervousness and poor management of the emotional component around him , also highlighted by the relationship with the former captain.
Highlighted by the minutes granted to Almqvist and Banda, despite the physical problems of one and the decline in condition upon returning from the African Cup of Nations of the other, and those taken away from Rafia, Sansone and Gonzalez, much better on the ball but employed less than what the field would suggest. Highlighted by considering the first in the same way as Kulusevski and Gervinho when Kulusevski and Gervinho are not, skeletonizing the maneuver to an obsessive search for the long ball to bypass the midfielders without an adequate attack on the second ball, replacing the best on the pitch without any technical or physics.
Because Antonino Gallo wasn’t only and only replaced. It was the most face sad of a Lecce that would, and should, smile. At Via del Mare as well as away from Ettore Giardiniero, where he has not yet obtained the entire stake from Colombo’s Monza penalty. With Luca Gotti or anyone else after him, in any category, with any position in the standings or result on the scoreboard.