Carlos Cuesta spoke in Collecchio on 23 May 2026 ahead of Parma’s match against Sassuolo on matchday 38 and set a clear short-term target: "We want to finish the season in the best possible way." He confirmed the goalkeeper selection to close the campaign, saying, "Tomorrow’s line-up? Corvi will start, along with ten others."
The numbers underline why the final game matters. Sports Mole reported Parma sat 13th with 42 points before the match while Sassuolo were 11th with 49. Cuesta framed the assignment plainly: "It’s been a week with a very clear focus: we want to reach 45 points and finish as high as possible, even if it’s not fully in our hands." He added the maximum the team can now aim for is twelfth: "Twelfth place is the highest we can achieve, and we’ll go after it with everything we’ve got." The reverse fixture between the sides finished 1-1, and across 13 previous meetings Parma had five wins to Sassuolo’s three, a small historical edge that sharpens the final-day moment.
Context deepens the shape of that target. Parma entered the fixture on three consecutive defeats and had managed only two wins in their last 11 matches. Their home form at the Stadio Ennio Tardini had been uneven across the season, producing four wins, six draws and eight defeats — a record that helps explain why scraping together three points to reach 45 felt urgent rather than symbolic. Sassuolo arrived as a club with a slim chance of finishing in the top half, making the final-day table permutations compact but meaningful for both sides.
The tension for Cuesta is immediate and concrete: absences. He listed ten unavailable players, naming Rinaldi, Cremaschi, Frigan, Delprato, Strefezza, Estévez, Bernabé, Oristanio, Ondrejka and Elphege among those out. That depletion forced Parma to include youth in the matchday group — "six Primavera players will definitely be in the squad" — and Cuesta gave their names: Mazzocchi, Mena Martínez, Plicco, Tigani, Cardinali and Mikolajewski. He noted one of them has already seen senior action this season: Mikolajewski has already made two appearances. The combination of a narrow points target and a patched-together side is the friction point that will decide whether Parma can close with a win.
Cuesta kept the focus tight on what is immediately actionable. "Today is all about Sassuolo – anything regarding the future or next season belongs to 2026/27," he said, steering attention away from planning and back to the task on the pitch. With 45 points set as the objective and twelfth place the clear ceiling, Parma’s coach has made the calculation public; what remains is simple and stark: the line-up he named, a squad heavy with youth because of absences, and a last-day fixture that will show whether those choices were enough.
