The new Naples coach Francesco Calzona is ambitious before the match against FC Barcelona in the round of 16 first leg of the Champions League on Wednesday, even if he only had 48 hours to prepare: “We will play this match for the win,” he insisted on Tuesday.
“Barça is one of the strongest teams in Europe, with great players and a great coach, but we are not afraid, we are Napoli,” he declared at a press conference.
“Starting against an opponent of this caliber doesn’t scare me. Naples is also a strong team, they demonstrated it last season and also this season during certain phases,” underlined the Italian coach.
“We will play this match to win it, because that’s my mentality, we play every match to win them,” continued Calzona who returned to a club where he already worked as assistant coach between 2015 and 2018 and in 2021- 22.
Calzona, 55, succeeded Monday evening from Walter Mazzarri who himself replaced Frenchman Rudi Garcia, appointed in July, in mid-November.
Napoli, reigning champions, are 9th in Serie A, 27 points behind leader Inter Milan, and were eliminated from the Italian Cup upon entering the competition.
“We didn’t have a lot of time (to work together), he admitted. We have to speed up the learning process, I told them that we have no excuses and that we have to improve. I also told them that the time was not for big speeches but for results,” underlined Calzona who remains coach of Slovakia.
His captain Giovanni di Lorenzo assured that his teammates were “aware of (their) responsibilities”: “When we change coaches for the third time, there is something wrong, we know that ‘we must do more’.
“We are not happy with this situation, we will get out of this situation by remaining united (…). For this match, we need to have a free mind, we do this job to play this kind of match,” he hoped.
