Maurizio Sarri warns Napoli not to take second-place for granted against Frosinone.
The Partenopei only need to beat the already-relegated side to secure direct entry to the group stages of the Champions League, but the Coach urges caution.
“The message to get across is that tomorrow will be difficult,” Sarri cautioned in his pre-match Press conference.
“There are 2,000 examples I could cite, but just last week Ajax and Atletico Madrid lost the League against teams at the bottom of the table [De Graafschap and Levante respectively].
Maurizio Sarri warns Napoli not to take second-place for granted against Frosinone.
The Partenopei only need to beat the already-relegated side to secure direct entry to the group stages of the Champions League, but the Coach urges caution.
“The message to get across is that tomorrow will be difficult,” Sarri cautioned in his pre-match Press conference.
“There are 2,000 examples I could cite, but just last week Ajax and Atletico Madrid lost the League against teams at the bottom of the table [De Graafschap and Levante respectively].
“Our results have been good, now we need the fans to help us to reach our objective.
“There’s no emotion now, instead there’s a lot of concentration and some concern, because the atmosphere surrounding the team is not the right one.
“We need the right mentality, so it will be important for San Paolo to roar us on. The squad is approaching it in the right way, but they don’t live in a bubble, so they can be influenced.”
Having worked his way up from the provinces, Sarri was asked if finishing second in Serie A would be the high point of his career.
“The journalistic vision of sport doesn’t always match with the emotion you feel. It’s the most important point, but the emotions don’t depend on the event, I was also excited to win Serie B or C2.
“It would be the most important result of my career though, that’s beyond doubt. We were at a very high level, even in the games we lost we competed well.”
The Vesuviani Coach was critical of Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid this week, declaring If I saw my team defend and counter-attack after 30 minutes, I’d get up and return to the bank [his former job].”
However, when asked about those remarks today the tactician insists he was misunderstood.
“I expressed myself poorly, or maybe someone put my words together in a questionable way,” Sarri explained.
“I was trying to get a different message across, that I’m not the person to play that style, and it wouldn’t entertain me because it’s not my thing.
“To clarify, they’re doing extraordinary things, and they’d be hard to play against.”