Pisa surpasses itself in the second half of the season. The defense dominates: the most effective of the tournament

by Michele Bufalino

Better than the first half of the season, on the pitch and from a technical-tactical point of view. Filippo Inzaghi's Pisa enjoyed the lead for one night, before being overtaken again by Sassuolo, but the trend of these first days of the second half of the season tells us of a steamroller team from every point of view. On the pitch, in the first five games, Pisa obtained four victories and a draw, taking home 13 points out of 15 available. A fact made even more stark if you consider that Semper conceded only two goals and his goal remained intact on three occasions. In the first half of the season, however, Pisa had obtained 11 points out of 15 in the first five games, which then became 13 in court, when the result of the match against Cittadella was converted by the court, months later, into a victory by default due to the well-known "Desogus" affair, when the opponent's player had been deployed even though he was not in the notes, and was then added belatedly.

In any case, on the field the difference remains clear since in the first games of the season the Nerazzurri conceded six goals compared to the two conceded in the second half of the season, managing to keep a clean sheet only on one occasion, against Palermo. A circle that closes, or rather, that will close on Saturday when Pisa will return to face Cittadella, with a poisoned knife after the ruling of the sports justice.

The only data in which Inzaghi's group did better at the beginning, compared to the first round of the first and second round, concerns the goals scored. At the beginning of the season Pisa scored 10, while six were scored after the halfway point.

But what is the real secret of the team coached by the former World Champion? First of all, the absolute domination of second balls and tackles. Pisa is in fact the team that has made the highest number of tackles in the entire tournament (442) and is third in terms of number of tackles won (245). The Nerazzurri, in the cross-referenced running data, have also made the most blocks of all (279) and, in the cross-referenced statistics between tackled players and number of interceptions, Pisa dominates with 641, an enormous amount more than Sassuolo (494) and Spezia (568).

Where Pisa dominates more than any other team in the tournament is in the saves made by defenders and goalkeepers. Here we are talking about 772 saves against Modena's 671, Sud Tirol's 666 and, going further down the table, Sassuolo's 574 and Spezia's 536. This makes Pisa the team with the most effective defensive attitude in the tournament, even if the Nerazzurri remain the second best defense in the championship with 20 goals conceded in 24 games, against Spezia's 15, the only pure defensive data on which the rock-solid Nerazzurri rearguard is still behind the Ligurians trained by D'Angelo. In the face of those who said that Inzaghi's teams decline in the second half of the season.