Luciano Spalletti wants his Inter to be “not a castle made of cards, but one with solid walls”.
The Coach took over the Nerazzurri last season and got them back into the Champions League, with qualification for the Last 16 within their reach.
“The biggest enemy was a lack of trust,” Spalletti explained in a long interview with Corriere della Sera.
“I tried to make the players understand that we were all faced with the same obstacle and we could overcome it only as Inter, not as [Ivan] Perisic, [Mauro] Icardi or Miranda.
Luciano Spalletti wants his Inter to be “not a castle made of cards, but one with solid walls”.
The Coach took over the Nerazzurri last season and got them back into the Champions League, with qualification for the Last 16 within their reach.
“The biggest enemy was a lack of trust,” Spalletti explained in a long interview with Corriere della Sera.
“I tried to make the players understand that we were all faced with the same obstacle and we could overcome it only as Inter, not as [Ivan] Perisic, [Mauro] Icardi or Miranda.
“Reaching the Champions League changed resignation into enthusiasm. The team is evolving, but I already know that it will never be like the one in my head.
“When you get closer to that, it’s only natural to raise the bar and think of an even stronger team.
“Pressure? The context of how you came up makes the difference. When you’re born Floyd Mayweather, you know you'll be a boxer. When you're born Manny
Pacquiao, you don’t know if you're going to be a boxer, but if you come up against someone like him it’s like fighting a battleship.
“After Empoli I took over Ancona, who had lost 13 matches in a row. If you start from the context I did then you’ll find fear on the roadside. I’ve felt it from the first bench and I hope to feel it for a long time.
“If you don’t feel that you’re flat and you give nothing. If you can’t handle stress and pressure then you won’t win, because you won’t be able to handle success either.
“Great intuition borders on madness, so if trying to understand what’s about to happen means having preventative fear then, yes, I have that.
“Fear is welcome if it wants to come, but it’s an emotion like the others: if it comes to me, it plays by my rules. Then it’s under control.
“If you mean the danger of being out of control then no, I don’t have that fear. You build your own future.
“An Inter player, with the fans behind him, can’t play for Inter if he’s afraid.”
Spalletti may have taken the Nerazzurri back to Europe, but they still have their ‘pazza’ moments.
“Lazio-Inter at the end of last season could have been one of our typical blackouts. We turned that possible darkness into a bright beam of light which led us to the Champions League.
“This season the advantage our rivals hold comes from us dropping points, which means I didn’t fire the players up. If we’re not ready after a long winning run, it means I made the wrong choices.
“There’s an ambitious project here, not a castle made of cards, but one with solid walls. Inter are permitted to reach our objectives, but it’s forbidden to set limits on the final objective.
“We want to go further.”
Giuseppe Marotta is set to take a role at Inter, and Spalletti was sacked twice when the former Juventus general manager was at Venezia with Maurizio Zamparini…
“He was and is my friend, one who is a group, a team – a trequartista. As for the sackings… it’s Zamparini.”