Claudio Ranieri explains the differences with Liverani’s Cagliari

“Teams coming down from the big leagues find objective difficulties: you need to settle into the mentality of the minor league.”

Returning to the Cagliari bench 31 years after his last experience, Claudio Ranieri did not miss his appointment with victory in the face of Moreno Longo’s Como, who were ruled with a goal in each half. At the end of the match, the Roman coach was expected in the press conference for his first impressions after the victory on the field, which led Cagliari to rise to sixth position, just one length behind Pisa.

“Clearly with a change of coach there is always that surplus of enthusiasm, everyone wants to show off. It’s logical that I had to talk a lot because this is a team that had started out to win the championship. It’s never easy to win and even when it went down to Serie C Cagliari was supposed to take a bite out of the league, but then they didn’t win the championship,” the coach began.

“Teams coming down from Serie A find objective difficulties, you need to drop into the mentality of Serie B. That’s what I asked the boys, to play, if they make mistakes I don’t care about anything but they had to play and do everything until the 90th minute. And then we would talk about it. Cagliari with Liverani had woven good tactical work, possession and entries, so they were creating a lot of goal chances. I like to see more of their determination, then after the quality they have they put them at the service of the team. It was a good first game. The wind affected the match a lot, it stretched or shortened the ball depending on where you attacked, but it was important to start off on the right foot because of all the enthusiasm there has been over the last few days and because of what was at Unipol Domus today,” he concluded.