Eugenio Corini knows it: 'winning is always difficult', regardless of category and blazon.
He learnt this in his years as a player, when, with his technical skills and leadership qualities, he led teams that made, for a time, the history of Italian football, such as the Chievo Verona of miracles and Maurizio Zamparini's Palermo FC.
He has understood this even more as a coach, coaching in ambitious clubs and facing situations that were not easy, sometimes complicated, and challenges that others would have perhaps declined.
Like the one today with Brescia.
After the disappearance of Brescia Calcio, a wound still open for a city that for more than a century had identified football as part of its identity, Corini returned home in the current season, replacing another Brescian, Aimo Diana, to take up a very difficult task. Not only to build a competitive team, but to restore confidence, continuity and a sense of belonging.
"The environment, I must say, has a lot of confidence," Corini began.
"It was a championship that saw us finish second, behind a Vicenza side that was trying for the fourth year. It's always difficult to win, a place like Vicenza, who won this year, like Catania, who are trying again, and Salernitana.
"We came second, which, for the way the season had been, with so many players in the squad injured, we had to manage a continuous emergency, is a great result and now we will prepare ourselves in the best possible way to play for the playoffs."
The playoffs represent the gateway to paradise for Brescia, who dream of promotion to Serie B against first-class competitors such as Ascoli, Salernitana and Catania.
A mini-tournament that began with the group stage and now comes into its own with the national phase.
Corini's team will face Casarano: away first leg on 17th May and return at the Stadio Mario Rigamonti on 20th May, with access to the Final Four at stake.
Macrotemps
It is a championship within a championship, and Corini seems to have clear ideas on how to complete the project that began in December 2025.
"The playoffs are won by tackling them with great lucidity, with great will, reacting to those nuances that change rapidly within a game or between games," said the Brescia coach.
The second place achieved at the end of the regular season represents, for the coach, a result of great value, especially considering the context in which it matured and the numerous injuries that have conditioned the squad and the coach's work.
A situation that he himself described as 'a management of a continuous emergency'.
Despite everything, the Brescian coach has managed to restore balance and confidence to a group that presents itself to the playoffs with renewed awareness.
"We reacted to a very difficult situation, we stood up by coming second and with this energy, with this mental strength we want to approach the playoffs in a great way," he explains.
Guardiola 'promoted' coach
Brescia is a club that hopes to regain its own history and that lives on indelible memories linked to champions such as Roberto Baggio, Andrea Pirlo and Pep Guardiola.
The latter, a former companion of Corini's at Brescia, has been linked with the Italian national team after yet another world disappointment.
It's a name that the Brescia coach promotes, albeit with a small reservation.
"I think that Guardiola, due to his skills and his ability to relate, can coach any team in the world.
"He has a strong status to coach the Italian national team, which is coming from a very complicated period.
"I don't hide the fact that the national identity, an Italian coach, is something I really like. Of course, if Guardiola came, it would be difficult for anyone to say anything considering the value of the coach and the man."
It will be up to the future federal president to choose the next manager. In the meantime, the football system will have to find new ways out of the quicksand of the last fifteen years and restore confidence in the environment and the players.
"I find it hard to believe that there are no important players,2 admitted Corini, trying to analyse the problem.
"It was difficult to think of not qualifying for the World Cup again, but unfortunately, it happened. Perhaps it was the pressure of having to go at all costs that weighed. It was not read as a responsibility that we have to take on."
Then he added: "I think today we have to regain our role and make pressure a privilege and work from the bottom with quality in preparing our boys, because I still think we have very good players.
"We have to prepare them both tactically and technically, but also from a mental point of view, which in modern football often makes the difference.
"We need strong leadership to give direction. There are many good and very capable coaches.
"They must have specific competences because whoever trains kids from six to ten years old must have certain competences.
"From ten to fourteen is another step. From fourteen to seventeen to eighteen is another step.
"In my opinion, they must also be paid in the right way, because it's not like you can underpay for a job that is worthwhile if you believe that this development is functional to what you want to build."
In the meantime, the Italians will once again watch the World Cup as spectators, hoping that in four years the Azzurri will be able to qualify again, perhaps thanks to the talents that are growing today.