Simone Inzaghi thanks Inter for staying focused on beating Torino and insists they go into the Champions League Final against Manchester City with ‘great confidence.’
The Nerazzurri concluded the Serie A season with a 1-0 victory away to Torino, decided thanks to a Marcelo Brozovic scorcher that bent back Vanja Milinkovic-Savic’s hand from outside the D.
It means they have won 11 of their last 12 games in all competition and are fired up going into the Champions League Final against Manchester City in Istanbul next Saturday.
Romelu Lukaku and Brozovic started today, have they given Inzaghi more doubts on picking Edin Dzeko and Henrikh Mkhitaryan for the Final?
“I have daily doubts, but tomorrow we will rest, then have an intense week. It will be our 57th match of the season and thanks to the 56 played so far, we have earned our chance to play this one,” the coach told DAZN.
“It is thanks to the victories, but also learning from a few defeats that we put ourselves in this position. I wanted to win today, because we owe it to our club and our fans, we wanted to improve our position in the table, winning eight of the last nine in Serie A.
“We wanted to honour the season all the way. Torino are a team who really cause you problems and make it difficult to play against.”
Inzaghi was asked what changed in recent weeks, whether it was the confidence of winning or the return of players from injury.
“Clearly, both are important. The key players like Brozovic and Lukaku were out for a good five months. That’s not an alibi, but they are very important for us. Obviously also, winning games and trophies brings belief and we’ve done extraordinary things in the last two and a half months to sort out our Serie A standing, as in February we were a long way off the Champions League zone and that was inadmissible for Inter.
“Now we have this great dream of the Champions League, we go there to play our best against a side with immense quality.”
Manchester City were also in action and won the FA Cup Final 2-1 against Manchester United this afternoon, putting them on the verge of the Treble.
“I didn’t see the game, so I will watch it carefully tonight!”
Emanuele Giaccherini was in the DAZN studio and advised Inzaghi to attack with the wingbacks, because players like Jack Grealish “are unaccustomed to defending inside their own penalty area. They try to win back the ball immediately, but aren’t good under pressure in their box.”
Inzaghi has players who can do damage like Federico Dimarco, who was rested today, and Denzel Dumfries.
“We must suffer together when it’s the moment to do that, play football to take possession off Manchester City, attack with balance. We’ll have this week to prepare in the best way and hope to get all the players back to fitness,” replied Inzaghi.
“It’s a huge challenge that we await anxiously, but I want to praise the lads, because it was not easy today to play a Torino side that was challenging for a place in Europe. They stayed really focused.”
This will be the first Champions League Final as a coach for Inzaghi, who has won four trophies in two seasons at Inter.
“Clearly, the emotions are strong, but fortunately we had a lot in the running still. Now I can start to enjoy it more with my lads, the staff and the whole Inter world. We were in the Coppa Italia Final and had to focus on that, the lads kept immense concentration and kept up the tempo in the last five Serie A rounds too.
“Now we have the 57th game of the season and we go into it with a lot of confidence.”
His brother Pippo won the trophy as a player for Milan, so has he any advice?
“It’s been 25-30 years that we’ve been talking about the Champions League in our family!”