Italian journalist Furio Focolari believes Lazio could have secured a win over Inter Milan on Sunday if it wasn’t for the late substitutions made by Igor Tudor.
The Biancocelesti were hoping to keep their slender Champions League hopes alive by beating the newly-crowned Italian champions at San Siro, blemishing their title ceremony in the process. The capital side seemed to be on the right track after taking the lead through Daichi Kamada in the 32nd minute.
However, Denzel Dumfries came off the bench to earn a draw for Simone Inzaghi’s men, which proved to be the final nail in the coffin of Lazio’s UCL dream. For his part, Focolari believes Tudor deserves the bulk of the blame for the equalizer after making some questionable changes late in the match, as he suggested during his appearance on Radio Radio (via La Lazio Siamo Noi).
The Lazio substitutions were extremely wrong. I give great credit to Tudor until the 86th minute, then he has to explain to us why he brought in Felipe Anderson in place of Pellegrini, or Luis Alberto in the last minutes if he wasn’t needed, and again Cataldi in place of Gila.
These are absurd changes. Until the final minues, Tudor unveiled an impressive Lazio side. He is a good coach, but when we wants to be a phenomenon with substitutions, he ruins it all.
Focolari also criticized Taty Castellanos for squandering a glorious chance late in the match, but reserved words of praise for Daichi Kamada.
Castellanos still has the same issues, he doesn’t add much. He wasted an important chance that cost Lazio the victory.
Lazio made significant progress with Tudor. For instance, I couldn’t wait for Kamada to leave, but now I think it’s time to redeem him. I thought he was a total disaster but instead, Tudor regenerated him
Sadly, it’s likely true and Tudor did manage to give away the 3 pts with those substitutions and it’s the 2nd time he does it (Monza 2-2 was also the fault of changes that he made)
Let’s see what happens, but he must change this.
Let’s try our hands on the europa again..we still don’t have the materials for champions league..
Would also blame tudor for the substitution, it completely messed up the rhythm of the game…