Pisa market, Oscar Hiljemark has other priorities than his future
Pisa soccer: the Nerazzurri’s new defeat, which came at home against Genoa, makes the Tuscans’ standings even more mortifying. The 2-1 home defeat represents the fourth consecutive knockout in Serie A and makes the mission of salvation almost impossible. Despite this, however, Oscar Hiljemark preferred to focus the post-match focus on other issues rather than discussing his possible future still on his team’s bench.
In the press conference, Hiljemark was tickled about the possibility that the defeat against Genoa could represent the last straw before his exoneration. Dry was his reply, “Defeats have come and I take responsibility for them. My position or my personal numbers, however, at a time like this count for very little. Pisa, the square and the entire city are much more important than me. I work every day to improve the team and create the conditions to win. The truth is that we also build chances, but when you find yourself face-to-face with the goalkeeper, you have to score goals.”
Against Genoa, Pisa had also managed to take the lead at 19′, taking full advantage of Angori’s cross for Canestrelli’s first-intention conclusion. The same Angori had clumsily missed the chance to double a handful of minutes later, throwing to the nettles a counterattack with Tramoni who would have been alone in front of the goal. Then at 41′ had come the equalizer by Ekhator, who was good at taking advantage of an initiative by Colombo and Baldanzi to beat Semper.
In the second half, after a miracle by Semper on Colombo, Canestrelli himself had deflected a Baldanzi conclusion into the box with a hand: the penalty, converted by Colombo at 55′, was inevitable. It was not until 72′ that Aebischer had managed to build a concrete chance for Pisa’s equalizer, engaging Bijlow. But Genoa had also come close to scoring the hat trick, with a fine first-time finish by Colombo that failed to deceive Semper.
The knockout against Genoa fits into a black thread that has accompanied Pisa for weeks now. In the three previous matches, the Nerazzurri had succumbed against Bologna, Torino, Como and Roma, with the latter being particularly painful: on April 10 at the Olimpico, Gasperini’s Giallorossi had overwhelmed the Tuscan outfit 3-0 thanks to a hat trick by Donyell Malen, who arrived in January and was already in double figures in the league. A match in which Pisa had almost never managed to make itself dangerous, with the exception of two chances in the final with Durosinmi, promptly neutralized by Svilar.
The situation in the standings is now dramatic: Pisa remains pinned in last place on 18 points, with only two victories won in 33 days. A haul that tells better than any tactical analysis the difficulties of a season that had already started on an uphill slope, that of the return to Serie A after 34 years of absence from the top flight. Hiljemark had taken over on Jan. 31 in place of the exonerated Alberto Gilardino, initially picking up some encouraging signs – including the second win of the season against Cagliari – before the team slipped back into a negative series with no apparent way out.
Still keeping salvation hopes mathematically alive is the situation at the bottom of the standings. Fourth-last-place Cremonese drew 0-0 against Torino in Sunday’s lunchtime match, taking a one-point lead over Lecce in the duel to avoid the third relegation zone. The gap between the grigiorossi and Pisa, however, remains 10 points, a gap that with five days left in the championship appears almost unbridgeable. Even at Cremonese, moreover, the environment is far from serene: after the disappointing performance of Marco Giampaolo — who took over from Davide Nicola on March 18 and was able to collect only one draw in the last three matches — the club is reportedly considering a resounding return of Nicola himself to the bench.
