“There are 8 games left to play and anything can still happen.” Samir Handanovic, interviewed by Tuttosport, continues to keep the dream of Champions League alive. “Our crisis? All teams in a championship have a decline, to us it happened in January when there are so many games. Unfortunately the lost points there had us a bit massacred. Perhaps we should have been content to get even a few draws during those rounds. The championship however, has showed that Juventus and Napoli have something extra and that we are in the group behind them. We must not forget that we have 13 new players in our squad.”
Your greatest joy in football?
“Reaching the World Cup with Slovenia because nobody expected that.”
Regret?
“The preliminary in the Champions League lost by Udinese against Arsenal because the team that had finished third in the championship didn’t show up to play those two games, since three players were sold without nobody being signed…”
Is the Champions League an objective or is it becoming an obsession?
“It remains an objective.”
To whom would you like to say thanks?
“To Bonaiuti, my coach: I met him in Udine and, from day one, he believed in me. Adriano made me better at everything and as soon as I could, I wanted to bring him to Inter.”
Is Buffon still the best goalkeeper in the world?
“There are many good goalkeepers around, each with different qualities.”
Why is it so difficult for you goalkeepers to win the Golden Ball?
“It’s the essence of the role: a goalkeeper defends, while everyone looks at the attackers. How can you not give the prize to the likes of Messi and Ronaldo who scores sixty goals a year? A goalkeeper must do three important saves per game, but perhaps not even that is enough. All this without forgetting how every great nation has its own school of goalkeepers and a number 1 that captivates the eyes in Italy may not do that in Spain or England.”
Handanovic could also make history of our football with the record for saved penalties: is that an objective or is it just statistics?
“A record that I never noticed, however, during the many years I played in the league and if I beat it, good… But it’s certainly not my obsession.”
You have had a gradual development.
“For me it was like going to school before I made the elementary school, then I went to the middle, then in high school and now Inter is my university. I started I in teams that could afford to let me develop slowly and I always put brick on brick: Donnarumma on the other hand, went from the Primavera to the first team, but if a player is good, he is good.”
Buffon became a goalkeeper thanks to Thomas N’kono: who was your role model?
“Peter Schmeichel.”
Source: fcinternews.it
