Igor Tudor suggested he was like ‘a general in war’ as he builds his Lazio project and commented on the dangers of their next opponents Hellas Verona.
The Biancocelesti have shown a number of positives following the arrival of the Croatian coach last month, even if they failed to progress to the Coppa Italia final following their recent 3-2 aggregate loss to Juventus. In Serie A, he has won three of his first four matches in charge.
Lazio are already building towards next season, carefully evaluating the squad to see who best fits Tudor’s project before looking to bring in reinforcements. A number of stalwarts seem set to leave, including Felipe Anderson, Luis Alberto and Ciro Immobile.
Tudor on Lazio project
Speaking in a press conference via TMW, Tudor first discussed Lazio’s recovery after their 2-1 win over Juventus.
“We’ll see today, we did two days of training. We have a day of training to prepare for a super important game, it’s the most difficult because it closes a cycle of many games in a few days. We can’t make mistakes, all the points are important and tomorrow we need to score points.”
He provided an update on the injured players in the squad.
“I have to evaluate the injured people today, some have recovered, others are halfway there, so we’ll see what today’s training tells us.”
Tudor spoke about his expectations of Hellas Verona.
“Verona are a tough team and in form, tomorrow will be super difficult for us. For their position in the standings it’s important, in Italy the matches are all difficult. Verona were an important stage for me, like the others I have experienced in my career.
“In this job you grow step by step, I started coaching 13 years ago and I have grown in all my adventures, since the beginning with the students of Hajduk Split.”
He reflected on his highs and lows of his first month with Lazio.
“There is no greater difficulty, the difficulties are always linked to the few days of training and the knowledge of the team which is still missing. The good thing is the disposition of the players, I found them all very willing to not make any mistakes. In this month nothing went wrong in training.”
Tudor was asked if he had any regrets from the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-finals against Juventus.
“I don’t agree on which match we played better, there are always regrets. I also regretted yesterday’s training, it’s always right to criticize and self-criticize. I’m aware of all the mistakes made this month, it helps me to improve understanding where we went wrong.
“It’s like a general in war, we always need to do an analysis and understand what happened, there are many things that affect performance and the result, the key is the time we use to grow.”
He commented on the growth of Valentin Castellanos and if he can play alongside Ciro Immobile.
“You can see them together in a small moment of the match where you have to recover the result, sometimes more players who have goals in their legs help to score, but sometimes putting on all the forwards doesn’t mean being more dangerous.
“Maybe if you haven’t worked on this solution, you can’t be dangerous.”
Tudor gave his thoughts on Mattia Zaccagni.
“Zaccagni can play as a wide forward, he can play as a winger. As a wing back yes or no, he can struggle because he has to sacrifice a lot. He can also play behind the striker, for us he is an important player and we have missed him a lot.
“He has shown his importance in the years spent at Lazio, he can give us an important hand, he will play from the start, but he can come on from the bench.”
He was asked if the team were growing in terms of mentality.
“Everyone sees the mentality in a different way, the mentality is part of something that is even more important, and we talk about values.
“Values that a coach wants to convey, to which are added aggression, wickedness and the desire to always do something more. These values are important not only in football but in all sports. Footballers are first and foremost men.”
Finally, Tudor spoke about if the Champions League was his goal.
“I haven’t set any ranking objectives and neither has the club. The objective is to do well in all the matches, usually there are important differences between the teams, but at the end of the season the difference disappears.
“I know if it’s easier to face Verona who have to save themselves or a team fighting for Europe.”