Lecco, 12 November 2023 - Crociato coach, Fabio Pecchia’s comments following Parma’s defeat to Lecco on Matchday 13 of the Serie BKT. 

“We started well, after going one up, we thought it would be easy. The attention dropped a bit, credit also to Lecco who were all over us with their strength, energy and desire to overturn the score. We had a great second half but it wasn’t enough. The boys had a great reaction with the desire to get back into it at 2-1. Nothing changed at 3-1, the team had the right attitude to try and get back into the game. Lecco defended well and took home the three points, credit to them. There are many positive indications to take from the game and an important desire and reaction. Lepore’s goal was great but I am not happy about conceding the goals from set pieces. It’s infuriating that we lost, we kept wanting to shape the game and we had to keep pushing when Lecco was on top of us. Then in the second half, we pushed but struggled to get into a good rhythm. But I’m happy with the boys, we have to make the defeats help us. The international break? When there are more international breaks, either we will have to stop playing or something different must be done. It took us a while to recover, this is true. But in the second half with the same 10, except Coulibaly, we had a different approach and appearance. Winning is complicated, every match is difficult, and victories seem to come by chance. It’s sacrifice, work, and energy and everyone wants to win against Parma. We have to think about our campaign, we have to come out of this stronger. Such a stinging defeat, but there are some positive and negative aspects. We controlled the pitch, we conceded a couple of counterattacks but that’s it. I liked Camara, Charpentier and Colak; we tried to reverse the momentum of the match. The referee? Kudos to Pairetto because it was a constant battle with his injury, but he made it to the end thanks to great mental strength. Before the penalty, we got into a dangerous situation with Bernabé on the right. Then the booking to Benedyczak because he celebrated but that didn’t seem disrespectful to the crowd in my opinion. And then we lost control of the game after that. Lecco were better than us.