The sporting director of Modena Andrea Catellaniduring the show ‘Sport Qui’ broadcast on TV Herealso spoke about the start of the detective story season:
“Caldara? It was the first blow of the last market and the biggest risk we took. I saw him play in the Primavera last year and noticed his positive attitude with the younger players. The fact that he knew that he would expire, combined with his desire to relaunch himself, made the difference. He wanted to be a protagonist and is giving us a lot of experience and leadership. The intervention in Cesena was bad, but the fact that he apologized and was reassured by the Romagna players shows what a player and what a person he is.
Defrel? The idea of signing Gregoire was born in the first days of the transfer market, we knew the contract was expiring. It’s an operation that couldn’t be done right away, then we approached it and managed to complete it. In terms of condition he didn’t worry us: he scored a goal in Frosinone, his condition was improving and he played against Juve Stabia. In a challenge during training he suffered an injury to his soleus, where he already had a muscle scar which, combined with the edema, prevented him from training. Now he seems to be better and we are almost there for his return. He is a player who can help us make an important leap in quality, we hope to have him already on Saturday in the derby.
Pedro Mendes? The only unknown was the muscle injury last season: he came back and did well, then he got injured against Juve Stabia. I’m happy with Pedro: he has a great mentality and he shows it by also trying to shorten recovery times. It is one of those assets that will allow us to plan for the future, it will guarantee us high levels.
Case? I hope he is ready to return, he too could be there already on Saturday against Sassuolo, but I won’t go too far. We had foreseen that he might not be ready for the first matches, he was coming off a long period of inactivity and had a contracture, so we decided to stop him so as not to lose him for any longer.”