Stiven Shpendi was Empoli's hero this season. Yesterday he scored two goals to ensure the club's survival in Serie B, while a 2-2 draw against Monza was enough. The first came after 32 seconds of play, while the decisive one in the 91st minute. Shpendi finished third in the scoring rankings with 15 goals. After the match, he gave his speech in an emotional tone.

What emotions, what feelings about this survival achieved in this way.

"It was truly an incredible survival, we felt very strong emotions. We fought so hard to achieve this goal, and achieving it like this only makes us celebrate to the fullest, with the greatest happiness."

Can you also tell us a little about how the celebration went in the locker room?

"The celebration is going really well, we're celebrating like crazy in the locker room because we suffered a lot, as I said before. And even now, after this interview, I'm going to continue celebrating with them because we deserve it. All these teammates deserve it for how much we've suffered this year."

What do you think made the difference in finding the energy, strength, solutions to get out of a difficult situation?

"No. It was definitely essential that we talked to each other so many times to get to a point where we really gave each other strength, all together. Which is what we wanted to do, to play as a team, not as individuals. To really help each other with that. That made the difference in these final games, and we gave it our all."

You scored 15 goals. What did you learn from this season?

"I'm really happy with my season in terms of scoring goals, and then of course scoring these two goals today after making mistakes last week was exactly what I wanted. Because I've been working all week to regain responsibility for this match, after my mistakes, and I couldn't have asked for anything better."

What was the last thing that went through your mind when you saw the ball go into the net?

"Well, the first thing I thought was if we would have been safe with this goal, honestly. I was wondering if it was an offside decision. I don't know. As soon as the referee blew the whistle, I immediately asked the bench what the order was, if we were safe or not. So that's the first thing that came to mind."