Douglas Maicon spoke with Gazzetta dello Sport about the current crop of Inter players as well as touching on the legendary Inter team that won the treble.
He started by talking about the importance of being back in the Champions League: “This team has a lot of character. Returning to the Champions League after 7 years will give you a lot of enthusiasm, and winning against Tottenham and PSV are good signs that Inter can do great things in the future.”
Of the new signings who is the best on paper? Nainggolan?
“Radja is a great friend of mine, we all know his strengths. The person who really impresses me is de Vrij, because he has done very well since coming to Inter, always playing at the highest level, but there is another player that I like, even though he is not a new purchase, and that player is Skriniar. I already spoke about him before, I saw him on TV from Brazil and he is a very strong player.”
In your old role over the last two seasons, Inter have had Cancelo and now Vrsaljko, are they good heirs to you?
“They change very often, when I was there, it was just me.. I’m kidding, they’re important players who have done and will do well, and then there’s Spalletti.”
Can Spalletti be the added value to the team, as Mourinho was when you were at Inter?
“He certainly knows the Serie A and the Champions League very well, but first the players must understand Luciano’s ways and that could be a bit difficult at the start, but now we see that the players have understood what he wants.”
Inter will be facing Barcelona next in the Champions League. During the treble winning season, you faced them four times…
“Four times against Barcelona, what luck, eh? In the end it was great, we learned a lot and we passed the test, we wrote part of the club’s story.”
