Brescia coach Fabio Grosso explained why he dropped Mario Balotelli and hinted the striker will be left out of the Roma game. “He has to help himself.”
It kicks off on Sunday at 14.00 GMT, click here for a match preview.
Brescia coach Fabio Grosso explained why he dropped Mario Balotelli and hinted the striker will be left out of the Roma game. “He has to help himself.”
It kicks off on Sunday at 14.00 GMT, click here for a match preview.
The game has been overshadowed by the Balotelli controversy, as he stormed out of training early on Thursday and it remains to be seen if he’ll even be in the squad travelling to Rome.
“I prefer to talk about the team rather than underline less important issues,” said Grosso in today’s press conference.
“What happened with Balotelli is something I’d already experienced in the past. I demand great intensity and a high tempo in my training sessions. When that doesn’t happen, I prefer to change and make the session tougher.
“He didn’t do that and was set to one side. I don’t want to minimise the incident, nor blow it out of proportion. It will be crucial for me to use everyone at my disposal, but I can only do so much. At a certain point, he has to help himself.
“You will know of disciplinary action, but I prefer to communicate these things to the players first myself. It’ll be for the good of the team. I don’t deny what I said about Mario, because I still really want to use his characteristics for the side.
“It’s going to be a difficult campaign, so we must be able to suffer under pressure and fight hard. I chose to do what I did. We want to achieve our objectives together, through work. I am convinced we have the qualities to achieve great results.”
Grosso took over from Eugenio Corini, but his debut was a disastrous 4-0 home defeat to Torino.
“It’s a campaign that puts us up against some complicated challenges, but we need to be more attack-minded. We cannot think of just defending during games,” continued the coach.
“We are up against a Roma side that play excellent football and have a lot of quality. It’ll be tough, but we intend to fight to the end.”