Stefano sat in his office quietly pondering how well formation change had worked against Chieti and whether utilising Balistreri and Pandolfi together in attack in a 442 would better suit the team.
"Are you coming in Stefano?" Tiziano said poking his head round the door.
"For what?"
"The draw for the next round of the Cup! All the players have finished training and are round the radio."
"Be right in."
The whole squad were in the main room of the "training complex" at Sant'Abruzzese, where they eat, have meetings and do anything that requires a large space. They waited patiently for the draw to start for the Qualifying Round of the Italian Serie C Cup.
Why's it called the Qualifying Round, when you've already been through a Group Stage, Stefano thought to himself.
"Martina, what do you make of that?" asked Tiziano.
"Think we would have all preferred a Serie C2 side but over two legs we could beat them, won 3-1 and 4-0 at home in the Groups, just got to keep the away leg tight. Anyway that's months away we go Latina at the weekend to contend with."
Latina had won their opening league game 5-2, so Stefano expected an open flowing game. He was wrong, it was a tight nervy game settled by one goal just before half-time scored by Martino Gravante after they had carving Latina open through the middle. The majority of the 2,055 strong crowd went home happy as San Potito picked themselves up after the crushing opening day defeat at Rende.
The papers the next morning were complimentary of the victory and also confirmed the signing of
Borge Eian to German second division side Bochum.
Midweek and San Potito headed north to the captial to face
AS Cisco Roma (current home of Paolo Di Canio IRL). A team brought about by a merger of AS Lodigiani and Cisco Calcio Roma in 2004. The game produced 39 shots, only 13 on target though and the first was converted inside 5 minutes by Improta for the hosts. San Potito hit straight back through Pandolfi. Stefano watched on as an attacking Cisco Roma peppered Stiel's goal in the latter stages of the first half and were lucky to still be level, one move saw them hit the woodwork twice before the Swiss tipped a shot over the bar. Stefano was looking to get his players in level at the half and regroup but that wasn't to be as Pandolfi struck again to give them the lead. He gave it ten minutes before defending the flanks against the constant surges and it worked a treat as they dominated the second half and recorded their first competitive away win.
Before Stefano had time to open the newspapers the next morning, Chairman Giuseppe Maglione was at his door.
"Superb display last night."
"Thank you Chairman."
"I think it's about time you started calling me Giuseppe, don't you?"
"I'm here to stay then?"
"To right after that performance, I'm not quite sure what formation you played in the second half but it certianly worked, we should have had another two at least. But we need to build on this and rack up some early points, breathing space from the bottom."
"Remember what happened last time you said that, Rende away."
"Well ensure that doesn't happen this time!"
With that the Chairman left and Stefano sank his head into the daily newspapers, both local and national. The first games in the Champions League Group Stages had taken place.
Rod Davies played left midfield in Sporting's 2-0 away defeat to Rangers in Group D and
Diego Della Rosa played up front in the 1-1 home draw to Panathinaikos in Group C.
(Str)
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