Lazio striker Ciro Immobile reveals he learned from Zdenek Zeman “the right movements” and from Jurgen Klopp to “to never give up”.
The Italian international has played for the likes of Juventus, Borussia Dortmund and Sevilla, but credits his breakthrough to a year in Serie B with Pescara.
“Zeman taught me the right moves,” Immobile confirmed, speaking to RivistaUndici.
Lazio striker Ciro Immobile reveals he learned from Zdenek Zeman “the right movements” and from Jurgen Klopp to “to never give up”.
The Italian international has played for the likes of Juventus, Borussia Dortmund and Sevilla, but credits his breakthrough to a year in Serie B with Pescara.
“Zeman taught me the right moves,” Immobile confirmed, speaking to RivistaUndici.
“When the midfielder has the ball there’s a rough idea of where you should run to. An important factor is co-ordination, you need to understand where to run and how to finish as quickly as possible.
“With the pace of today’s game it’s unthinkable that you’d be able to stop the ball in the area, look around and then kick it.
“It’s about speed of thought, that’s what the best strikers have. That’s the talent.
“My loan spells? It’s not a bad thing, because it gives you an opportunity to prove yourself, maybe if I’d stayed at Juventus things wouldn’t have gone as well because I’d have had fewer opportunities.
“The only thing I couldn’t understand is that after that season at Pescara, [Marco] Verratti went to Paris Saint-Germain and [Lorenzo] Insigne went back to Napoli, while I went to Genoa.
“That experience helped me though, at Torino the following year I was able to do well, thinking about the negative periods I’d been through.
“Even there I had difficulty, in the first seven games I didn’t score and they said I wasn’t ready for Serie A, that I’d done well in Serie B and scored goals because the Coach was Zeman.
“Dortmund? Klopp taught me never to give up, he never changed his attitude, it was the same when we won the Super Cup as it was when we were bottom of the League in December.
“Speaking German? It’s hard, because even after all these years [Franck] Ribery doesn’t speak it, even [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang and [Shinji] Kagawa don’t know it.
“[Thomas] Tuchel came in and he spoke to me in German. I said ‘look, I don’t understand’, then he realised I was having difficulty.”