Federico Coppitelli, Osijek coachspeak like this to Radio TV Serie A: “The Croatian championship is very particular, it contains 10 teams and in itself, for us, it is strange. And then each opponent meets four times, like a double championship. It is difficult to make a comparison with Italy: there are three teams like Dinamo Zagreb, Hajduk Split and Rijeka which have an international dimension. And then the others, but it is difficult to compare with Italy. However, it is a complicated and very popular championship, in which playing away is difficult. You go from 40 thousand people to see you in Split against Hajduk, perhaps in Sibenik, where you find very different negative structures compared to that one and therefore you have to adapt to the Rakitic, the high-level players, but in the others there are those he already knows the level and the environment and they know how to put you in difficulty in another way.”
A summary of your first part of the season?
“Positive. In the first four games we had problems between the transfer market, injuries and double commitment with the Conference. In the last six, however, we had five wins and one defeat, as the youngest team in the championship. We are growing and we are happy.”
Have you had the opportunity to speak with Gattuso?
“Yes, we are three Italian coaches: me, him and Paolo Tramezzani. After the match between us I spoke with Gattuso and we agree on the difficulty of the championship and on the fact that for an Italian a much greater cultural openness is needed. It’s unthinkable, for example, to make people eat pasta with sauce, chicken and other things before each match. There is no rigidity regarding food, for example. But on the other hand you find guys who always work, without asking why or how.” .
Anyone to report for Italy?
“We have Matkovic, a 2006 player who wants all of Europe and already has a very important rating. Like many young people we have, he needs to make a transition in his maturation and way of working. But he has really important quality. And we have others, guys who will do Well”.
A sweet memory takes her back to Lecce Primavera.
“Before the World Cup break we were fifth from last, then afterwards we practically won them all and finished first, we even won the Scudetto semi-final and final in the last seconds. That group prepared me for this experience that I’m having now.”
There he coached Patrick Dorgu, who everyone wants today.
“The scouting area of Lecce was very good. He was a Danish national under, and of that national team he was the only player without a professional contract. Anyone could have signed him but no one saw him except our head of scouting. He has the characteristic of not take the pressure.”
What is his real role?
“Good coaches talk about function and not role, let’s say it depends on how you fit him. He’s a pushing full-back or a fifth if you play with three at the back. However, I was able to see the match against Verona and how can you say that he isn’t an attacking winger, having scored three goals and caused a red card? For me, however, his natural role is as a left back. And I see the qualities of the predestined in him. When he was with me in the Primavera, it’s not like he was never called up in the first team, He didn’t even train. But the management had decided that he was from Serie A.”