Inside Cremonese: Stroppa’s Tactics, Transfer Window and Best Players

Even by Serie B’s notoriously unpredictable and volatile standards, Cremonese’s season so far has been an undecipherable riddle.

Giovanni Stroppa’s men began the campaign among the promotion favourites after losing the play-offs final to Venezia in June, but two defeats in the opening three matches and a meagre return of one goal cast doubts over their credentials.

The Tigers roared back to life by thrashing fellow promotion favourite Sassuolo 4-1, followed by a creditable draw against Spezia and a win away against Catanzaro, but their momentum was checked by a defeat to Brescia and a draw against Bari.

The two-game winless runs cost Stroppa his job, with the former Crotone midfielder sacked in mid-October and replaced by Eugenio Corini, who left Palermo in the summer after two seasons.

The change of manager appeared to breathe a new lease of life into Cremonese, with Corini picking up wins against Juve Stabia and Salernitana in his first two matches in charge and abandoning Stroppa’s favourite 3-5-2 formation in favour of a more traditional 4-4-2 approach.

The feel-good factor, however, swiftly evaporated as the Grigiorossi were held to a draw by Modena and then came unstuck against then-league leaders Pisa and in the derby against Mantova.

The latter result proved to be the end of Corini, with Stroppa swiftly parachuted back in during the international break and Cremonese fifth on the table, 10 points adrift of second place, which guarantees automatic promotion.

To put that into context, Stroppa had left his team sixth in Serie B, eight points adrift of first place and five points behind second place.

His second spell at the Stadio Giovanni Zini began auspiciously enough with a 1-0 win over Frosinone courtesy of Franco Vazquez’s fifth goal of the season, which left Cremonese 10 points behind league leaders Sassuolo and nine behind second-placed Spezia.

Vazquez, perhaps more than any other player, embodies the state of confusion that has dominated proceedings in Cremona thus far. The Argentine looked set to return to South America in the summer, but instead is now the team’s top scorer at the tender age of 35.

“When a club decides to recall a manager, it signals a change of heart. It’s a recognition that previous choices may not have been the right ones,” Cremonese sporting director Paolo Armenio said after the win over Frosinone.

“It takes strength to reverse course.”

Stroppa has a number of issues to address, starting with a porous defence that has so far conceded 17 goals – the third-worst return of any team in the top-10 in Serie B.

If nothing else, however, he seems to have retained support from his players. “The dressing room welcomed the club’s decision to step back and bring Stroppa back,” Vazquez said on Saturday.

“They did it for the good of everyone. We have to work hard and hope this victory is the foundation for even better things to come.”

Transfers: Cremonese invested €5m on players this summer to bring in Juventus Next Gen right-back Tommaso Barbieri along with Sampdoria centre-forward Manuel De Luca and Salernitana striker Federico Bonazzoli.

The transfer window also allowed the Grigiorossi to freshen up their squad, with 22-year-old Lorenzo Moretti joining from Triestina, while 21-year-old Eddy Cabianca arrived from Virtus Verona. Marco Nasti and Michele Bigonzoni, both 20, arrived from AC Milan and Prato on a free transfer as did 19-year-old Samuele Regazzetti, who joined from Lumezzane.

On the departures front, centre-back Emanuel Aiwu joined Austrian side Sturm Graz for €1.6m, while Paolo Ghiglione signed for Salernitana in a €1m deal.

Best performers: At 35 years of age, Franco Vazquez remains Cremonese’s shining light with five goals in 13 Serie B appearances so far, while Michele Collocolo has added three from midfield and new signings Federico Bonazzoli and Marco Nasti have scored two apiece.

Matteo Bianchetti, meanwhile, has been ever-present in Serie B this season and arguably the only bright note of a defensive unit that has looked worryingly shaky in the first four months of the campaign.

Tactics: Stroppa started the season firmly committed to the 3-5-2 formation that is the preferred choice of most Serie B clubs with Federico Bonazzoli and Manuel De Luca up-front and Franco Vazquez operating as attacking midfielder, before a shift to a 3-4-1-2 meant moving the Argentine further up the pitch.

Eugenio Corini’s five-match reign saw Cremonese float between a more orthodox 4-4-2 and an attacking 4-3-3 formation with Michele Castagnetti and Michele Collocolo operating as sitting midfielders, before a return to the 3-5-2 as Stroppa replaced his successor.