The Cup Nobody Really Wants… Until They Lose It
After beating my former club Atalanta in the Super Copa Semi-Finals I then faced an old rival in the final, Alex of course.
There are certain trophies in football that exist largely to remind everyone that football administrators enjoy additional revenue streams.
The Italian Supercoppa is one of them.
In theory it is a prestigious occasion, pitting the league champions against the winners of the Coppa Italia. In practice it is Italy’s answer to the Community Shield. An elaborate curtain-raiser that everybody insists doesn’t matter until approximately three seconds after the final whistle.
Having been comfortably dismantled by Fiorentina in our league meeting earlier in the season, I decided that repeating the same tactical approach would be the managerial equivalent of repeatedly walking into the same lamppost and acting surprised each time.
So I changed everything.
Wing-backs replaced full-backs. The shape became more aggressive. We looked… different.
More importantly, we looked competitive.
For the first time in a while it felt as though we had actually solved part of the Fiorentina puzzle. We created chances. We asked questions. We spent considerably more time attacking than admiring Alex’s passing combinations from a respectful distance.
Unfortunately, football has a habit of introducing entirely new problems the moment you solve the old ones.
Fiorentina were awarded two penalties.
Their goalkeeper then produced the sort of performance that makes opposition supporters briefly consider checking whether he has been edited.
Every shot seemed destined for the corner until it wasn’t.
Every save became progressively more irritating.
By full-time the scoreboard read 3-1.
Looking solely at the result, it appeared comfortable.
It wasn’t.
Sometimes football matches are decided by tactical brilliance.
Sometimes they’re decided by a goalkeeper refusing to cooperate and a referee developing an unexpected enthusiasm for pointing at the penalty spot.
I congratulated Alex on another trophy.
Naturally, I also reminded him that the Supercoppa is essentially a glorified pre-season friendly and of no real importance whatsoever.
This statement should not be interpreted as an indication of how I genuinely felt