Rolando Maran has challenged his Cagliari side to go as far as possible this season following Sunday’s 5-2 thrashing of Fiorentina. Cagliari have, temporarily at least, moved up to third in the Serie A standings and their latest victory at the Sardegna Arena was made even more impressive by the fact they had five different scorers in the match, with Marko Rog, Fabio Pisacane, Giovanni Simeone, Joao Pedro and Radja Nainggolan all notching.
The Sardinians are now unbeaten in their last 10 matches, a run that dates back to the start of September, with Maran admitting they are more than exceeding expectations, although he has also challenged his side to maintain their current standards. “Even the rosiest expectations didn’t see us this high up the standings,” Maran told DAZN. “There is a whole city and island pushing us on, so we just have to continue like this and make it a challenge against ourselves, nobody else.”
Cagliari were 5-0 up heading into the closing exchanges of Sunday’s match, but they conceded two late goals and Maran feels that has to be a warning to his players that they cannot afford to switch off at any stage of the season. “What we mustn’t do is what we saw towards the end, when we stopped playing and conceded two goals,” the 56-year-old added. “Fiorentina are not simple opponents and they are tough, we made it look easy because we worked so hard.”
Following the international break, Cagliari will face three successive matches against sides at the bottom end of the table, with the home clash with Sampdoria coming in between away trips to Lecce and Sassuolo.
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