Cremonese attacker Cyriel Dessers sat down with Serie A ahead of Matchday 28 to speak about the club’s fighting spirit, his career and accomplishments, his season highlights, and his reasons for coming to Italy.
Fighting Spirit
Bottom of the table with just one win to their name. Yet despite that, Cremonese make their opponents work hard for the points.
“I think that’s the character of the team, we always keep going, and we always have hope. Even in the games we are losing or trailing, like against Monza at home for example, or Sassuolo away, even when we are two-nil or three-nil down, we keep fighting, we keep trying to score a goal and come back in the game. But if I look at the big picture, at the whole season, I think we didn’t play that bad a season, especially in the beginning, we played very good games and we were unlucky. If in this moment we had a little bit more luck, it could have changed our whole season.”
Football Career
This Cremonese team includes young promise and wise old heads. Last summer, ahead of their return to Serie A, the club signed Nigeria international Dessers. He has more than 100 career goals and was last season’s UEFA Europa Conference League top scorer.
“Football was for me plan B, study was for me plan A, and if I see now, even when I became a professional player, quite late, at 19 years old, my career went with ups and downs. But this is a part of me, and I will never give up, even if you see now, I realised so many of my dreams. I played a final in a European competition, I was two times top scorer already, I played in the national team, I scored for my national team… For me… I scored in Serie A. If there’s a nice story to this, none of this came for free, or came easy, but this only makes it worth more for me, when you have to work as hard as I did, when you have success it only feels better. And you enjoy even more.”
Objectives, Highlights & Moving to Italy
However tough the league, the Grigiorossi are flying in the Coppa Italia Frecciarossa – reaching the semi-final stage. As for Dessers, with six goals so far, he’s aiming for double figures.
“This is the first time in my life I fight for relegation, it’s truly a different experience, and for me individually it’s not easy. As a striker in a team that fights against relegation, you get fewer balls, you get more difficult balls, you get fewer chances to score, but still, you try to do your work for the team, you try your best, and that’s what I’m trying. Of course, the highlights for me are the moments I scored some goals, but if I look for me a very nice moment was the moment we win in the quarter-final of the Coppa Italia against Roma in the full Olimpico. These are the moments why I came to Italy, I wanted a new culture, a new league, I wanted to see how I could keep up against the best defenders in Europe, play against big teams in big stadiums, against world-class players. For me, this is one of the main reasons I came to Serie A, and I’m still very happy with my choice.”