Sassuolo.

In deep Emilia, in the deep Po valley, the land of "Il Comunista" by Guido Morselli, or if you prefer the more famous "Peppone and Don Camillo", Sassuolo rises. Sassuolo is in the province of Modena, but plays in nearby Reggio Emilia at the Mapei Stadium, the result of a vision of a great entrepreneur like Squinzi who wanted to bring the Emilia province to challenge the Italian nobles and aspire to compete in Europe. Here you can breathe the Italian Communist Party. Here you can breathe the Garibaldi Brigades. And with the (little) maturity of my 43 years, with the baggage of so much studied history and continually trying to inform me, what was done by the communist partisans at the time seems striking to me. After defeating fascism and with the awareness of being many and capable of a revolution, they handed over their arms to the Italian army, giving Italy the current Constitution (to which the PCI has greatly contributed), democracy and 70 years of peace.

The postwar period in Emilia was well described by Guareschi who staged “Peppone and Don Camillo”. The Cold War that lasted for 50 years between the US and the USSR, between the DC and the PCI, is represented in the small town of Emilia between the parish priest (Don Camillo) and the mayor (Peppone). It was a very different Italy. Without cell phones, internet, Twitter. Politics was done in the party sections, in one's own small town. They were parties founded on values, universal principles such as family, solidarity, brotherhood and others, which should also be shared by current generations. At the time, Guareschi's work attempted to play down an authentic conflict and recognized the democratic validity of the debate. Don Camillo and Peppone had different opinions on any issue, but there was deep respect, there was a basis of friendship, due to the anti-fascism shared by both. As you realize, that town of Emilia is very far from our times.

Dionisi deploys 4231, trying to put you down, also thanks to an excellent pressing with 3/4 players who press on the opponent's start of the game.

We can create problems for him in game building. They also do set Consigli that does not mind the long throw for Raspadori. Small, but good at this stage. Winning these duels can be decisive. Under construction you can also call Boga on the left or Berardi on the right. They build with both central back (Chiriches-Ferrari). Especially Ferrari is very good at this stage. Good on the second balls. If they overcome the pressure, then they are fast and dangerous on the counterattack, mainly with Raspadori (good with both feet) and Berardi (left).

In the offensive phase, a key player is Djuricic, good at assisting Raspadori, but also at closing the triangle with the striker.

Boga and Traorè play like left wings and are right. Their foot is inconsistent with the band they play in and can shoot around on the far post.

Another key player is Berardi, the right winger. He is left-handed and like Boga or Traorè he can go towards the center to shoot with his favorite foot. In this situation, he varies the solution (rhyme!), Usually he shoots with effect to the farthest pole, in recent times he also shoots hard, instep, low shot on the nearest pole, so seeing how he puts his foot to kick you can easily understand where the ball will throw. In this case it is mainly important not to get him kicked closely. He can also go back to the top of the area to cross to the far post or go to the back of the field to cross low with the right (where he is more controllable).

On corner kicks, they defend by zone, in attack they shoot with Rogerio (left) from their right, from the left their Raspadori. From the corner they look for the center-area. They can look for alternative solutions because they have few very tall players (the most dangerous at this stage is Chiriches). They can also look for the short corner.

They try to rule and have usually the technical quality to do. It's a tough game than important and we must put an only goal: WIN. Daje Roma!

Giordano Sepi