Ivan Juric is frustrated with ‘losers’ Hellas Verona after their 2-1 defeat to rock bottom Crotone and leaves the door open for his future.
Hellas have just one win in their last 11 games and have visibly lost focus in recent months, but also again showed an inability to convert their possession into clear-cut chances or even goals.
Ivan Juric is frustrated with ‘losers’ Hellas Verona after their 2-1 defeat to rock bottom Crotone and leaves the door open for his future.
Hellas have just one win in their last 11 games and have visibly lost focus in recent months, but also again showed an inability to convert their possession into clear-cut chances or even goals.
“When a team like ours lowers the focus, this is the absolute proof that we will go nowhere. We’ve shown too many times this season that we lacked character, desire and hunger,” the coach told Sky Sport Italia.
“This is a great lesson for me in the future too, because we can play as pretty as we want, but we’re still going to be losers.”
Verona picked up 30 points in the first half of the season and just 13 after the midway stage.
“We achieved our objective of Serie A safety, we saw achieving anything else was impossible, so we lost our focus. We no longer have that something that allowed us to pick up the 30 points, that hunger and mental strength.
“Let me be clear, we had an extraordinary season, considering all the players we lost and didn’t really replace, all the changes we had to make, it’s a pity we’re ending like this.
“Mattia Zaccagni was fantastic in the first half of the season, five goals and five assists, then lost his way. We certainly lacked goals from the strikers and players who have great quality and didn’t show it. It’s not easy to win games when your strikers don’t contribute goals to finish all those opportunities.
“We’ve seen it so many times this season, we create many chances and then get caught on the counter. As I said, we were ugly but winning before, now we are playing well and we’re losers.
“We are satisfied with too little. We’re losers and this is a lesson for the future, because you need to get the motivation from somewhere, as dropping even by 5-10 per cent is devastating.
“Last season we finished ninth. Now, even with the recent disasters, we’re still in the top 10. That’s great for a humble club like Verona. You can dream about more, but then have to look at the reality of the situation.
“We’ll sit down at the end of the season and decide what to do next.”