The echo of Catanzaro records had also arrived in Germany: «I followed Brighenti, my teammate already at Frosinone, and I saw that he won practically every match. When the deal that could have brought me here came up, I called him, I was half expecting it to be like this, I was hoping for it to start like this, even if maybe not that it could have gone so well from the start.” Luka Krajnc has the open, relaxed and smiling face of someone who knows very well what he has to do and how he has to do it.
He has experience, technical and physical qualities, he has won a lot in Italy (two Serie B playoffs with Cesena and Frosinone, a championship with Cagliari), so he has the broad shoulders of someone used to top-level contexts. And then he couldn’t wait to return to Italy: «I had been in Germany for three years, I missed the people here, in the south in particular they are always close to you and it’s very nice, just as the first impact with the team, which plays a type of game that I really like and I think that, once all the new players have been integrated, we could only improve.” The twenty-eight year old Slovenian has already done it, to be honest. He broke the ice as a substitute against Ternana, then played two as a starter and tomorrow he is expected to play a hat-trick against Parma: «My natural role is that of central defender, in Germany at Fortuna Dusseldorf I played some games as a pure left-back and I feel good here too, I adapt to what the coach asks of me and I try to do it in the best possible way.”
Low left winger in the possession phase, left central in certain phases of non-possession, when Vandeputte “comes down” to help him, Krajnc is the only one among the summer reinforcements to have already convinced the coach: «In Germany you play more individually, here there is more tactics and that’s also why I wanted to come back. Now I’m very happy I did it.” Before leaving, Krajnc had made more than a hundred appearances in B (and another thirty in A), so in August he knew what awaited him: «In my opinion the level of the tournament has grown, we are at the beginning of the season and all the teams will improve.” As for Catanzaro, the prospects are interesting: «The club is healthy and I knew it. We can improve from all points of view, we play a lot with the ball, therefore in looking for cleaner and cleaner play up front where we have strong players who can resolve matches at any moment. For those of us behind, however, it is important to be united.” So far they have succeeded: «We are all doing our duty and you can see it on the pitch, we are very united. Even against Lecco, after their draw, we came out and took three points which gives us a positive spirit.”
Parma will be the toughest test of this first phase. «He is a very equipped opponent, we will have to try to do our part by conceding as little as possible in a stadium that will be a spectacle. Is Catanzaro smaller in size than the others I’ve played in? I have never made any differences between clubs, I have always thought about giving my best. And then, as it is now, Catanzaro is great.”