Capello calms injury concerns
Sunday 31 October, 2004
Fabio Capello is forced to make massive changes against Chievo, but he claims Juve have the strength in depth to maintain their five-point lead.
“We don’t care what Milan and Inter do,” he assured when asked about the Scudetto race. “Chievo have a solid defence and we’ll have to give everything we’ve got to continue our run of results, but we have the team to make up for those players who are out.”
Both fullbacks are changed as Gianluca Zambrotta and Jonathan Zebina are injured, while midfield maestro Emerson is suspended.
“The press kept pushing for me to rotate the squad, so they’ll be pleased. We couldn’t play the same eleven men for the whole season. A great team has to know how to get around these situations and we’ll see many such dilemmas over the course of the season.”
Juventus are still unbeaten and have only dropped points in the 1-1 home draw with Palermo, but Capello is never happy.
“Everyone hopes to start a campaign this well,” he added, “but it’s a long tournament and we can’t afford to let up the pace. I’m satisfied with how we have performed so far, but reaching 80 to 85 per cent of your potential is the easy part. To get that extra 15 per cent you have to work really hard and that’s what we’re trying to achieve.”
Capello spent the last few years at the Stadio Olimpico where Roma would regularly have 50-60,000 fans every Sunday, so he is finding it tough to adjust to the Stadio Delle Alpi.
“If at a Champions’ League game between Juventus and Bayern Munich you only get 18,000 fans in attendance,” noted the Coach, “then something is fundamentally wrong. We tried offering mini-season tickets, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe families feel they aren’t safe going to the Stadium, but if my team was playing Bayern I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”