Roberto De Zerbi sometimes struggles to sleep before a big game. At an online event hosted by sports leaders from his hometown, Brescia, in May, the Sassuolo manager confessed to obsessing over opponents’ strengths, adapting his team’s preparations to a degree that he suspects might be counterproductive.
This weekend’s adversaries offered plenty of material to keep him up at night. Napoli had scored 14 goals in four Serie A games, winning all of them, with €70m new addition Victor Osimhen integrating seamlessly and Hirving Lozano starting to show his quality alongside the established combination of Lorenzo Insigne and Dries Mertens. Their only defeat thus far was a notional one – handed down after a no-show against Juventus. They were touted already as title contenders.
For once, though, De Zerbi had a different concern. He knew all about Napoli’s quality. What troubled him was the refusal of his players to accept their own. “Over the past two days, when I told the team that we were just as strong, I looked in their faces and it seemed like they did not believe me,” he told Sky Sports on Sunday. “I stopped them and told them I’m not a man who sells smoke. When I talk, it’s because I’m convinced about the words that I’m saying. I was convinced of being able to beat Napoli.”
Sassuolo were without a loss themselves, though their schedule made that easier to dismiss. Two of their three wins had come against newly promoted Crotone and Spezia, and the third, over Bologna, required a chaotic three-goal comeback. De Zerbi’s side had drawn at home to Cagliari and a dismal Torino.
Their 16 goals were the most in the division, yet even here there was a caveat. Ciccio Caputo, Domenico Berardi and Filip Djuricic were responsible for 11 of those strikes. All three forwards had been ruled out for the Napoli game.
Still, De Zerbi had a plan. If Sassuolo could starve Napoli of possession, there would be no way for their own constellation of attacking talent to do damage. It was an audacious thought, against a side who have been very effective at retaining the ball under Gennaro Gattuso, yet an obvious one at the same time. This is how De Zerbi has been modelling his side ever since he arrived in 2018.
He has argued that a team with the ball has more power to set the agenda, but his outlook is also influenced by his own experiences as a former No 10 – who played out a modest but happy career mostly in Italian football’s second, third and fourth tiers. “When I didn’t have the ball, I got nervous and I didn’t enjoy myself,” he has said. “So as a manager I always keep that thought in mind.”
That would have been a special goal from Victor Osimhen! 😮
Was just missing the finish for what would have been a Napoli opener 🔵 pic.twitter.com/oZ7uYRXaiC
— Premier Sports 📺 (@PremierSportsTV) November 1, 2020
Perhaps Napoli were feeling skittish already on Sunday. You could not credit a suffocating lack of possession for Osimhen’s failure to score in the 11th minute, when Andrea Consigli passed the ball straight to him 10 yards out. The goalkeeper recovered impressively to block his shot, but a better finish would never have given him the chance.
At that point, it must be said, De Zerbi’s approach was starting to look dangerously misguided. Sassuolo had already thrown possession away once when trying to play out from the back, with Mertens flashing a resulting shot just wide from the edge of the box.
Slowly, though, they improved. Better decisions were made passing out from defence, allowing the central midfield pairing of Maxime Lopez and Manuel Locatelli to get on the ball. Together they played keep-away, frustrating their hosts and minimising risks. By half-time, Sassuolo had enjoyed almost 60% of possession while barely creating a chance.
A draw would have been a fine result. But Sassuolo also knew that opportunities would come with patience. The return of Jérémie Boga to the starting lineup, after he missed the first month of this season with a coronavirus infection, meant they would always have a threat to break something open. As well as scoring 11 goals last season, he was Serie A’s most prolific dribbler.
It was his surge into the Napoli area early in the second-half that paved the way for Sassuolo to get their opening goal. Boga slipped between a pair of defenders before being tackled by Gaetano Di Lorenzo, but the full-back was unbalanced by the effort and his lunge to stop Giacomo Raspadori from seizing on the loose ball finished up with him planting studs on the striker’s foot. The penalty was awarded after a VAR review. Locatelli converted.
Napoli’s response was frenetic. There were chances to draw level, but their play was disjointed throughout. When Kostas Manolas finally did get the ball in the net in injury time, his effort was disallowed for an offside call against Osimhen. The Nigerian then appeared to be fouled during the action that eventually led up to Sassuolo’s second goal – scored by Lopez on the counter.
None of which could take the wind out of De Zerbi’s sails. “You never know if it will be easy to win or difficult,” he said at full-time. “What I tell the lads is that if we do lose, we can at least choose how to lose. If we lose, we will lose playing football.”
It is an approach that has won him plenty of admirers. Pep Guardiola was hailing De Zerbi’s work as long ago as 2018, and plenty of observers have sought to draw a link between the two. In truth that would be oversimplifying, as the Italian cites a great number of managers among his inspirations.
At another online seminar this spring, De Zerbi drew on work done by Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool and Maurizio Sarri at Empoli. The name he returns to most often, though, is that of Marcelo Bielsa.
De Zerbi wrote to the Argentinian after landing his first Serie A position, at Palermo in 2016, and was shocked to receive a call back two days later. Bielsa invited him to spend a week observing training at Lille, and made time to sit down during that visit and get into the details. “I didn’t even know him,” recalled De Zerbi. “If he’s supposed to be crazy, then I would like to be the same way too.”
It won’t take him long to earn such a reputation if he carries on like this. Sassuolo represent a town of little more than 40,000 people, and presently sit second in Serie A. On Sunday, De Zerbi took them to the Stadio San Paolo without his three top scorers, and beat Napoli at their own game.
Quick Guide
Serie A results
Sampdoria 1-1 Genoa, Napoli 0-2 Sassuolo, Roma 2-0 Fiorentina, Spezia 1-4 Juventus, Torino 3-4 Lazio, Udinese 1-2 Milan, Bologna 3-2 Cagliari, Inter 2-2 Parma, Crotone 1-2 Atalanta
Monday Verona v Benevento
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