"We cannot compete with the big teams in Europe - we have no money - we're financially unable to compete"
That's what destroyed our mentality after the Bayern demolition job.
I think the bayern demolition job is what destroyed the mentality. Conte just stated the obvious there and I think all of our management echoed the same sentiment. We were completely outplayed and not because we had a bad day. They were just far too good for everyone and stating some reasons behind such superiority is humility. I am glad Conte didnt blame refs or any other Benitez like excuse.
Conte is to blame for the nervousness of the squad that followed. The team needed a strong reaction on their next visit to Europe but that never happened until today. Bare in mind that we are not a squad without players of Character. Buffon and Pirlo are vastly experienced winners while Vidal was one hell of a fighter in Europe especially pre-Bayern. Barzagli, Marchisio and Chiellini are experienced too and went all the way in the Euros. We are not Arsenal, Liverpool or Roma to have very few mentally tough players. We should have broken that barrier. The closest we ever got to breaking that fear was against Real Madrid because we played very convincingly and deserved to win. However, Cacares'(under Conte commands) back pass to Ronaldo and other brain farts ruined all the good work.
Under Conte, we performed very well against Galata in Turin and against madrid home and away. Under Allegri, we performed very well against Olympiakos (in terms of performances not results). The problem is that we always wasted all the good work out of wastefulness in attack (that we would never see in Serie A) and nervousness in defense. Our problem is not of quality or of tactics its of character. Sometimes a change of tactics however gives the necessary shake up that might release the players' mentality a little bit. To get out of this, I think we need a madrid-like performance only for the opposition team to break down under pressure or to fail to capitalize on our nervousness. They can keep hitting the bar, have an off day or Buffon can be heroic or something.
I think Barca is the top team scalp we can go for. They have nervousness at the back too and a shit coach. If we have a great performance like that against madrid against them and yet manage to get away with a win we will begin to reach our full potential.
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Or a reply to a cronios post
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IN the firsy Oly game, we were still with the $#@!ty mentality and tactics from last season.
Atletico can beat Porto and Monaco if they want.
We still have a poor mentality. We always look like we are about to piss ourselves. We almost wasted all the good work against OLY when we won. We never get results that our performances deserve because of this poor mentality.
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As far as I remember Goal.com was forbidden on Tuz.They are english site and they always promote EPL clubs.Also they are some kind of a yellow paper site almost always dealing with nonsense speculations.
Like it or not on the international scene, Goal is very relevant and one of the top footballing sites in the world if not the top in terms of traffic. Tuz is irrelevant.
Sites like Goal have a huge influence on public opinion.
They support EPL clubs because the English clubs know how to market themselves and knows how to have good relations with the press to generate good publicity. Italian clubs are ancient in that regard and can only have connections with local Italian papers that no one reads outside of Italy.
I am not asking for us to be like EPL clubs or the two spanish giants in the media thats too far fetched. But atleast be like Bayern or Dortmund.