Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri spoke to reporters after his team falling out to Juventus in the Coppa Italia. here is what he had to say:

On sitting Albiol and Mertens

It’s obvious some had to take a rest and Albiol and Mertens were the ones who needed it the most. Mertens depends a lot on being in top form for his style of play. It’s critical to give him a rest occasionally. You can’t have regrets about this. Last year the complaint was “you always play the same players” now it’s “you rotate too much”. The truth is we played a great match and dominated the defending champions of Italy in two matches. This is a great sign especially considering the young players we had on the pitch. It seems like we are beginning to approach those sitting atop Italian football at the moment.

On the refereeing errors affecting the outcome

When you lose like this it’s always difficult. In 180 minutes against Juventus you need a bit of luck on your side but for 25 second we were very unlucky, let’s put it like that. To go from a possible 2-2 to 3-1 in just 20 seconds, it’s clear that was a decisive moment. It had a big impact over both matches. Let’s say we weren’t very lucky.

For this match I don’t think the referee had an impact on the result like in Turin.

On whether he believes Napoli are on the right path

If I didn’t believe so I would stay home. I believe it. I don’t believe it when people say in order to win you have to play ugly. Even at Empoli people told me we played too attractive to avoid relegation. Tell me if we played less attractive football would we collect more points? Explain it to me. Even considering the characteristics of our players, this is who we are. There are pros and cons like with anything. After today I feel closer to the top of Italian football which is Juventus. After these two matches I saw that we aren’t too far away.

We want to win for these fans. They deserve it. Not being able to award them with a trophy and knowing how difficult it will be is frustrating. This is true. But it’s also true that we are building something and I’m convinced that very often the people leave the stadium happier than when they came in. Watching this team is entertaining and the feeling is that it’s starting to grow in terms of personality and mentality. Tonight they fought until the very end to try and get the result.

On criticisms about not putting the ball out of play for a Juventus player lying on the pitch

I don’t have a response. Why should we do an act of fair play against a team that only wasted time in the last 25 minutes? If we are both sportsmanlike that’s one thing otherwise let’s not just waste more time. If their approach had been different ours would have been as well. I won’t accept criticism on our sportsmanship. We have 180 less fouls than them. We are the team with the least yellow cards in the league. We decided that action because of the approach they had. Each team did their own thing.

On the defense allowing more goals this year

This year in general teams are scoring more. Also, we’ve committed some more errors in comparison with last year. I’m also probably bad and unable to teach them how to defend. If that’s your point, then I’ll tell you myself. ::laughs:: There is also another interesting fact to consider. We second in terms of shots allowed. Juventus gives up 3 per game and we give up 3.4. That means our organization on the pitch is good. Rarely has Juventus taken so few shots on goal like in these past two matches.