Spalletti: Cagliari concede many shots but few goals? That's intentional

On October 12 at 02:45 CET (Beijing time), Juventus will visit Cagliari in Serie A Matchday 6. Ahead of the match, Juventus head coach Luciano Spalletti attended a press conference. This is part one of the press conference.

Good afternoon, Coach. Good to see you again. I'd like to ask if you could explain in detail how you've managed the team during this three-week international break, including player psychology, maintaining focus, physical fitness, competitive form, and any other details you'd like to add.

Well, regarding this fairly long international break, everything has pros and cons. However, in this case, team management has been quite straightforward. A longer break provides adequate rest and recovery, which helps address the physical and mental fatigue accumulated during the intensive fixture schedule. In such situations, rest is the only remedy.

So we've managed it strategically: with sufficient time, we conduct detailed individual assessments for each player training with the team and create personalized training and recovery plans to maximize this period.

Coach, I'd also like to ask about the condition of players returning from their national teams. Are there any players who need rest after continuous play? Also, for players like Zhegrova, who wasn't included in European competition squads, is there a chance he could make his first competitive start tomorrow?

Zhegrova is one of them. In the last two training sessions, he's frequently switched bibs during practice matches—sometimes with the starters, sometimes with the non-starters. I won't recall the exact lineup. I'll review and check playing time later, and then I might call someone to share that information with you. You know I can make calls, right? Well, not just anyone (laughs)—I've already chosen who I'll call. I'll contact them, and they can relay that information to you and everyone else.

But seriously, I must emphasize that all players returning from their national teams are in excellent mental condition. Their performances over the last two or three training sessions have been outstanding. I'm very pleased with the focus, overall rhythm, and execution everyone has shown during training.

Of course, throughout this process, we've also adjusted training loads based on how many matches they played for their national teams and when they returned, since some players only came back to training yesterday. Nevertheless, we're very happy to have these excellent players and even more pleased with their current physical and mental state.

Cagliari has had an excellent start to the season with very unusual statistics: they appear to be, along with Frosinone, the team that allows the most shots in Serie A this season, generating a very high xG against, yet they've conceded only two goals so far—making them one of the best defenses in Serie A and even in Europe for fewest goals conceded. What key characteristics have you identified when evaluating Cagliari? In other words, does facing a team with such paradoxical statistics present additional tactical difficulties?

You've just provided a very thorough summary: one must know how to correctly interpret statistics and combine data with reality, otherwise numbers are just abstract, lifeless data that can even distort and reverse what's actually happening. In my view, after watching several of their early-season matches, Pisacane and Giulini (Cagliari's president) truly deserve the points they've earned so far—though this doesn't include last season's wins, which they didn't deserve.

So we know this will be a very difficult match. They deliberately give you little space—as you correctly summarized—they'll even actively "invite" you to push your formation into their half, because they have players who can quickly launch counterattacks after regaining possession, with excellent dribbling and ball control in tight spaces. So even if you press intensely as we've done in previous years, they have the ability to neutralize it.

They've allowed certain players to shine this season, like Maldini, who's fully demonstrated the highest potential in their squad. Therefore, in that match, we must be exceptional, very decisive, very sharp, and very intense. Because if we give them space, they know exactly how to exploit it and punish us.

Good afternoon, Coach. I'd like an update on the medical room and the injury list. Besides Cambiaso, has anyone else recovered and rejoined the main squad? If I remember correctly, we saw Cabal return to the field, and is Cambiaso ready now? What stage of recovery is he in? A week ago, we saw him play for an hour against Cremonese...

Regarding Cambiaso, he's completed all training sessions with discipline and correctness and is one of the players performing well. As I said before, I'm satisfied with all available players. You can't avoid all obstacles and unexpected circumstances in life or in football, and it's a waste of time to constantly describe and discuss them here. When an obstacle—or what people usually call a problem—is in front of you, the only thing you can do is face it, overcome it, and solve it. So we're satisfied with the players we have, and we'll enter the match with our current squad, giving everything to win.

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