Cremonese challenges Juve Stabia: the race towards Serie A begins

The desire to try again after the final lost a year ago. The desire to assert their position as favourite. The fear of an opponent who has much less to lose. The race towards the Serie A of Cremonese starts again from the Menti stadium in Castellamare: today at 20.30pm the grigiorossi challenge the Juve Stabia in the first leg of the playoff semifinals (the other match will be Catanzaro-Spezia, on the field tonight at the same time). Fourth against fifth in the Regular Season and this placement will have its weight.

According to the regulation, in fact, men of Giovanni Stroppa to advance to the next round, it will be enough to obtain two draws or in any case an overall score without a goal difference (for example a 1-0 win and a 1-0 defeat). But it won't be a walk in the park. Juve Stabia could have less pressure. The Campania team, newly promoted to Serie B, have had a season well beyond expectations and arrive galvanized after the success over Palermo in the first round of the play-offs. And even the previous seasonal matches have not shown big gaps: 2-1 for Cremonese in the first leg, 1-1 at Zini in the return match. For this reason, Stroppa asks for attention: "Every match is a final, the values ​​are reset. The level is very high, Juve Stabia has shown that it deserves to be here, for how it is trained, for the idea of ​​football that they have. We know the difficulties we will face. Among these is the synthetic pitch, which we are not used to". At the same time, however, the coach of Grigiorossi is aware of the value of his players: "At this moment we have our destiny in our hands. Everyone is extremely focused, we have shown it in the last ten games and they show it to me in all the training sessions. We have to take the incidents on our side and think one game at a time. At this moment the bench is not that long". Yes, because in fact numerically Cremonese is not in the best conditions for today's match. There are 5 absentees: in addition to the long-term absentee Saro, Antov, Pickel, Ravanelli and Zanimacchia are out due to injury.

According to Stroppa, everyone is recoverable for the return match, but in the meantime we need to deal with this evening. In defense, therefore, forced choices with Folino who will join Bianchetti and Ceccherini. In the middle, in place of Pickel, the true beacon of the team, there will be Collocolo. On the outside, Azzi and Barbieri are confirmed, while there is a ballot to be resolved in attack: De Luca seems certain of a place, next to him Johnsen is favored over Vazquez. El Mudo represents the extra weapon of the Lombards during these playoffs, however due to the suspension he has only played forty-five minutes in the last two months and has yet to find the right match rhythm.

Probable formation (3-5-2): Fulignati; Johnsen, De Luca. Coach Stroppa.