Rome beaten 1-2, Cremonese in the semifinal of the Italian Cup – Football
Napoli’s Roma, protagonist of a beautiful and unfortunate performance, disappears at the Olimpico and Ballardini’s Cremonese goes to the semifinals of the Italian Cup, who will face Fiorentina in April. On the evening at the Olimpico, once again ‘sold out’, Mourinho’s team showed its worst face and played a long, if not always, unwatchable game, losing against a team that has never won in the championship yet and is last in Ranking. In the Cup, on the other hand, he’s doing well and after Napoli, eliminated on penalties at the ‘Maradona’, he makes another excellent victim. It will be that the controversies over Zaniolo have certainly not calmed the environment, it will be that, as Mourinho says, the Giallorossi squad is probably not equipped to face three competitions, and in fact the coach, almost wanting to prove it, sends promising young players onto the field , like Tahirovic and Volpato, maybe not ready yet. If we add to this the errors of Kumbulla, dazed to the point of deserving a substitution at the end of the first half, and of Celik, a fish out of water, it emerges that ‘Cremo’ is a well-deserved success, perhaps to dedicate to the memory of one of this team who was primarily a great fan, Gianluca Vialli. Little pace, zero intensity, too much nervousness, maybe a little presumptuous thinking he’s already won. The fact is that Roma made a foolish impression by failing in practice to strike up an action worthy of the name, and the four changes made at the beginning of the second half were of no use, with the various Dybala, Smalling, Zalewski and Matic on the pitch, and then also the entry of Abraham, which only translated into a crowd with no outlets, apart from the useless goal by Belotti in recovery. Without quality, Roma conceded Dessers’ (clear) penalty in the first half, after a huge mistake by Kumbulla, and the ex of Feyenoord who took his personal revenge on who had beaten him in the Conference final. He also went to cheer under the Curva Sud, unleashing the wrath of the Roma players. The second half began with Celik’s own goal on Pickel’s initiative, Cremonese then held the field and played with good personality while Roma can only complain about a failed chance from Smalling. For the rest, complete darkness and a lot of disappointment on the part of the public, which could already be seen in the Cup final even if the opponents, including Cremonese, must first be faced.
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