Venezia coach Paolo Zanetti describes the changes that allowed him to beat Torino 2-1 and hopes this is a turning point for the mentality of the group.
It was a chaotic match, with Toro starting strong and taking the lead through Josip Brekalo, but the tactical change to 3-4-3 after 20 minutes transformed the game.
They turned it around through goals from Ridgeciano Haps and Domen Crnigoj, sealing their first Serie A victory in three months with a 2-1 result.
Serie A | Torino 1-2 Venezia: Lagunari victory amid VAR drama
“As we expected, Torino were very aggressive at the start and our distances were all wrong. At that point, I said let’s just mirror their tactics, go one-on-one all over the field and make it a series of duels,” Zanetti told Sky Sport Italia.
“We needed in any way to pull something else out the bag, because we’ve been struggling lately, but we saw when the lads have this attitude, they can do anything.”
There was VAR drama late on, as Andrea Belotti saw his equaliser disallowed after a long check and on-field review for Tommaso Pobega’s offside position interfering with play.
Venezia have clambered out of the bottom three with this result, awaiting tomorrow’s games.
“We’ve got a game in hand, so it’s best not to look at the table right now, or it’ll be distracting. We’ve faced the top five teams in the last six rounds, so it’s natural we might have some difficulties.
“At the first game that was less tough, we picked up an impressive victory. It’s a great result, but above all a strong show of character from the team.
“We had a strong mentality to earn promotion last season, but it was decided to transform the squad, bring in 20 new players, so it took time for us all to communicate with each other and rebuild that mentality.
“There have still been a lot of errors in the late stages of matches, and we got lucky this evening on the free kick, as that could’ve been another equaliser.”
Zanetti revealed he has been studying English for at least an hour every day in order to communicate with this multi-national Venezia conglomerate of a squad.
“I needed a full immersion over the last year, as the first issue was talking to the President, because he is American. Many of the players now also speak English, so I had to dive in and work hard on that.”