Anyone who liked watching livestreams had seen it—pro players getting tilted when they ran into cheaters.
Totti's feelings were easy enough to understand.
Sacchi, who had stood outside listening for quite a while, came in and said directly, "You all know Juventus has gotten stronger again, right..."
The locker room erupted in boos.
Sacchi smiled. "That's why today's match won't be easy. Those people from Turin deliberately lined up before the match to show off their sportsmanship. If they beat us with underhanded methods, they'll only get even more praise. But that kind of scheme won't work against us. Don't they like physical battles? Then we need more attacking set pieces in the second half. Savićević, carry the ball and make more breakthroughs to win set pieces, understand?"
Dejan Savićević: ...
Calling someone by only their surname was hardly polite.
Fine, who told the team to have two Dejens?
But what the hell was this about getting more touches?
To win set pieces, there had to be contact. With Juventus playing this way, heavy contact meant injuries were almost guaranteed.
It was practically saying he mattered less than Baggio and Totti.
Though dissatisfied, Savićević said nothing.
A player's standing had to be earned on the pitch.
If he could truly secure a foreign-player spot consistently, Sacchi would never have sent him out to do this kind of work.
Still, it was a fairly reliable tactic.
For a while, Southampton had practically relied on Prowse alone for half their points. When your attacking free kicks were that accurate, they really could break every tactic by force. No matter what setup you used, he could just score from free kicks.
Little Juninho scoring more than once every six free kicks was the best proof.
That efficiency was nearly on par with an