Lazio defender Mario Gila: Sarri works his system to millimetre

Lazio defender Mario Gila appreciates the coaching of Maurizio Sarri.

Gila says he's improved working with the Lazio coach.

He told AS: "He is a coach of the highest level. Obsessive and ambitious, he brings his method to another level. He's a fanatic about the defensive line, I'm very grateful to him for everything he taught me."

"He's a bit superstitious, even though it's quite common in sport. With him we can do great things: the schemes are exaggerated, yes, but they have their variations. It's not the quantity, it's the quality. Humanly, he has his own way of being and is not very communicative. He speaks on the pitch, at the beginning it was a bit difficult for me, but I adapted immediately, I knew how to understand him."

Asked about Sarri's defensive line, he continued: "It is unique in this, unique. It works like no other, I assure you. At the beginning I was a bit lost between the language, the movements, here, there, the exit of the ball depending on the profile of the player.

"It was very, very difficult for me. But when you adapt, you see that the line flows by itself, we all think at the same time and move at the same time. It's true that we defend in the open field and this can make us suffer, but we cover very well spaces, we measure our times very well, so it is difficult for us to suffer in space. He has worked very well, he is very meticulous, he goes down to detail, to the centimetre, to the millimetre.

"The work he has done over all these years is to be admired You can tell he worked in the bank: numbers, numbers... On the pitch he works with distances, meters, speeds. He looks a lot at the data, what you run. Some coaches don't give him much weight, but he does. It goes very deep into the details."