Fabregas reshaped Como at half-time to shut down Matic
A 2-0 win over Sassuolo came only after Cesc Fabregas admitted he had underestimated Nemanja Matic and made three changes to press his former Chelsea teammate out of the game.
Cesc Fabregas told DAZN Italia he changed his approach specifically to stop Nemanja Matic, after Como's 2-0 win over Sassuolo left the first half goalless and unconvincing.
The Como coach made three substitutions at the interval, redesigning his side's pressing structure around denying the Serbian midfielder time on the ball.
"We changed a few things during the break, as I think I had underestimated the quality of Matic, just as I did last season when we lost to Sassuolo," Fabregas said, as reported by Football Italia.
Matic operates as the deep-lying point of Sassuolo's build-up, the player whose passing range and composure allow his team to set tempo from deep. Fabregas's diagnosis was that Como had let him dictate that tempo unchallenged for 45 minutes.
Pressing Matic out of the game
The fix was not subtle. Fabregas described a man-oriented approach aimed squarely at one player rather than a broader shift in shape.
"Matic needs to be pressed constantly for the whole match. We cannot let him play," he said. "After that, we started to play better, and they lost both confidence and control."
That sequence is instructive. Denying a deep playmaker his first touch does not just remove his passes; it disrupts the opponent's rhythm in transition, since a team that cannot build calmly from the back is forced into longer, lower-percentage passes under pressure. Fabregas's own description of Sassuolo losing "confidence and control" after the restart points to exactly that knock-on effect.
He was candid about the gap between the two halves. "We were lacking something in that first half, so I really liked the reaction," he said, framing the turnaround as a response to a specific in-game problem rather than a pre-planned script.
The personal dimension added colour to the tactical story. Fabregas and Matic were Chelsea teammates, and the Como coach revealed what passed between them after the final whistle. "He is my friend, I told him sorry, but we had to press you, otherwise you'd be running the game," Fabregas said. Matic's reply, relayed by Fabregas, was pointed: "Remember you played your best football with me!"
Rotation as a tool, not a risk
Fabregas rotated heavily for the match, leaving Nico Paz on the bench for the full 90 minutes. Tasos Douvikas, deployed in his place, scored both goals.
The coach framed that rotation as a necessity rather than a gamble, given the physical toll of competing on two fronts. "We cannot always go at full speed, but if we want to be this team, then we've got to find the energy from somewhere," he said.
For a squad rotation policy to work without weakening results, every player brought in has to be trusted to execute the same defensive principles as the first-choice XI — in this case, the same collective press that nullified Matic. Fabregas was explicit that this trust is the mechanism that makes rotation viable. "That is only possible if the coach trusts every member of the squad, knowing he can change and give everyone an opportunity," he said, adding that the squad is in a "growth process" and learning daily.
A fixture list working against Como
The result followed a 4-1 win over Manchester United, and Fabregas's post-match comments acknowledged the challenge of maintaining focus in Serie A after a Champions League night — a pattern Como have struggled with this season, according to Football Italia.
That challenge does not ease. Como travel to Torino on Tuesday evening in a Serie A round compressed by midweek scheduling, and Fabregas pointed to a specific imbalance in preparation time.
"Sassuolo had eight days to prepare for this match, now we've got Torino coming up, who played yesterday and have 24 hours of added rest," he said. "This is a big difference this season and we're still getting used to it."
The sequencing matters tactically as much as physically. A team adjusting its pressing scheme mid-match, as Como did against Sassuolo, needs recovery time to reset shape and intensity for the next opponent. With Torino arriving fresher on paper, Fabregas's rotation policy and his players' capacity to execute collective pressing on short notice will be tested again inside 48 hours of beating Sassuolo.