Deschamps: "Great personality and character" Shortly after the full-time whistle, Didier Deschamps gave his analysis of the 2-1 win over Cesena. "For an hour we played very well tonight. Unfortunately we made hard work of things at the end but going down to ten man and losing Kovac through injury certainly didn't help. The team showed great fighting spirit and a demonstration of personality and character was exactly what we needed after Saturday's defeat." The coach was asked what had made the difference tonight, with respect to the performance against Mantova. "Certainly it helped having two important players back in the starting line-up, Palladino and Camoranesi. But the team's attitude was also spot on. We suffered towards the end, with things obviously made more complicated with the one-man disadvantage, but overall it was a great result". Zebina's sending-off puts even more pressure on the Bianconeri's beleaguered defence ahead of Bari's visit on Saturday. "We've suffered a lot in that area this season, but hopefully we'll have Kovac back in time for the next game. Will I bring Ciro Ferrara out of retirement?! How about Montero or Torricelli while we're at it! But seriously, things would obviously be a lot easier if we had more defenders available but unfortunately that's not the case at the moment". The journalists asked why Camoranesi was taken off. "Camo's still not 100% and we took a risk playing him from the start. He did very well for an hour but he just didn't have the gas to last the full ninety minutes". And the performance of Mirante? "He would start in goal for any number of Serie A teams. It's not always easy for him being second choice keeper but he never loses his concentration. Working alongside Gigi certainly helps and in the end it's important to have players on the bench who are capable of securing valuable points".
REGARDS -elang- [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
