Arturo Vidal lavished team-mate Andrea Pirlo with praise after the Italian midfielder’s last-gasp winner settled this evening’s pulsating Derby della Mole meeting with Turin rivals Torino.
The Chilean played an influential role in extending the Bianconeri’s winning run against their neighbours to seven consecutive encounters, providing the assist for Pirlo to crash home on 93 minutes.
But he was quick to play down the extent of his involvement, instead passing on all the credit to his “incredible” midfield partner.
Speaking to the media after tonight’s 2-1 win, Vidal began: “It was all Andrea’s doing, all I did was tee him up. He’s an incredible player and only he could have scored that goal.”
Vidal admitted the Bianconeri didn’t have it all their own way against a defensively stubborn Torino outfit, but acknowledged they were expecting the inter-city derby to be as challenging an encounter as ever.
He concluded: “It was a difficult game, as it always is when we play against them. Torino were fairly defensive-minded and put 10 bodies behind the ball, so it wasn’t easy to move the ball around quickly. We needed to wait for the right moment to break forward.”