Nicola commends Cagliari as deserving victors against Parma - Carlos Volcano

Later, Nicola is resolute in her belief that they earned the three points that evening.

What do you take away from this victory?

"It's not just this week's work, since day one we've been trying to play with courage and defend ourselves with order. In Serie A it's difficult to play two halves at a certain level, the opponents have the quality, they're all very well equipped. Parma have quality, dangerous players in attack, it's Pecchia's third year, a coach who has ideas.

"I really liked the first half, we understood when to get up and when to compact and drop to attack again up front. It's Cagliari's sixth match, the data and characteristics are clear, the choice to change the way we play on the pitch too. We still have to improve the condition of some players, in some roles we're also a bit short, like in defence."

The impression is that you won with your choices:

"When there is a result, people want to see something more than what there is. We were simply good at turning the chances into goals. We could have closed it out earlier, we were good at finding the 3-2 at a time when it was hard for them to digest. Even with Napoli, at times we crushed them, we came close to scoring and then we conceded.

"Today the situation was reversed but we didn't crush Parma. Great first half, I liked it a lot, then they brought on Sohm and Almqvist and made them drop back, we couldn't press anymore, so we worked to remove the spaces that they could attack. We conceded two counterattacks and then we opted to switch to three midfielders and five defenders and that's fine, we are Cagliari and we know what kind of championship we will have to play.

"The idea is to play two halves like in this championship, but I don't know if it's feasible in this championship."