Igor Tudor feels the push to beat Juventus on Saturday in stoppages sapped them of energy in today’s 2-0 Coppa Italia semi-final defeat, but ‘there is still the 2nd leg to play.’
The coach had only made his debut on the Aquile bench on Saturday in a last-gasp 1-0 win over Juve in Serie A, thanks to an Adam Marusic header.
However, it was a different scenario in Turin with the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final and they lost Mattia Zaccagni to injury in the opening minutes.
Luis Alberto’s effort came off the crossbar, then the Bianconeri scored in the second half with Federico Chiesa and Dusan Vlahovic running onto smart through balls.
“We had a good first half and a bad second,” confessed Tudor on Mediaset.
“We showed character to come here, but there were players who still need time to adapt and just started working with me. Juve were different to three days ago, we used up a lot of energy on Saturday and it was probably too much of a strain for us. There was an enormous difference in fitness levels today, I thought, and that showed in the second half.”
Tudor made several changes to the starting XI that won at the weekend, although Luis Alberto and Ciro Immobile were coming off injuries.
“Plus Patric and Zaccagni had a few injury problems, Casale hasn’t slept for two days as he had a kid yesterday, but he had to come on. We rather lost intensity and Juve took advantage. That can happen, but the 2-0 result still leaves everything open for the second leg.”
When Tudor took over from Maurizio Sarri during the break for international duty, a large portion of the squad was away, so he warns this transformation to 3-4-2-1 is not going to pay off immediately.
“Out of four halves of football against Juventus, three were excellent. Juve have a different mentality at home, they have players worth €100m and they can make the difference.
“We knew from the start that the characteristics of these players were suited to a certain style, we need time to work on what isn’t going well and build on the things that click.”
Lazio really do not have time right now to work on these issues, as this Saturday they have the Derby della Capitale against city rivals Roma.
“It’s a bit of a full immersion to start with, with these two games and then the derby, but perhaps after that we’ll have the chance to get a few training sessions together.
“My lads gave their all today and there is still a second leg to play, so we’ll see what happens.”
The decider will be at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on April 23 and the away goals rule does not apply, so Lazio must win by two clear goals to force extra time, three to reach the Final.