He has for the last eight years been head-coach for Shaktar Donetsk and has been very successful, but in the late 90’s when he coached our beloved Inter he didn’t perform as well. Mircea Lucescu has in the last few days spoken to Gazetta Dello Sport about why Serie A is dropping down on the Uefa ranking-lists.
On the international level we can see Italy falling behind, why is this happening?
“For starters you haven’t respected Europe. For example when I saw Napoli play with their reserves against Dnipro at home the other week I though “Impossible”. You can rest a player or two but now half of your team, it gives the impression that you don’t care. Europe sees this and this is what you are doing wrong. You have the tools to climb up again. Though winning and climbing shouldn’t be your goal, it should only be a step on the way to a bigger goal.”
Which examples should we follow?
“Juventus. They own their own stadium, they are professional and their players are educated into the clubs spirit. They don’t buy a player who only stays a year or two, they buy players who grows within the club and this does them good. Inter has also taken this path now. Though we can see that Milan are still stuck in their old ways. They buy players with expiring contracts, they sign players with big names, but they are only thinking about the impression they’re making, not what they are really building. How can you build a team on players that are 34-35 years old? These players will never breathe the teams spirit.
You usually surprise with changing roles for your players. How come?
“If a player knows well what foundations the clubidea lies upon, they can play anywhere on the pitch. The important is to do what is needed in that moment on the pitch, so I train my players for all sorts of situations.”
Source: fcinternews.it
