Radja Nainggolan has downplayed his importance to the Inter cause in an interview with ESPN where he also touched upon his past experiences with Roma in the Champions League.
“It’s not just about me as there are a lot of players here with character, who believe in what they want to do, and this is a good sign. The team play well regardless. I can bring my own type of charisma, which is part of me, but these statistics are not important.
“I’m not a player who can make a difference by myself. I’m a component in a squad that can do harm together, working as a team.”
The Belgian midfielder went on to discuss Inter’s Champions League group and what he describes as Inter having “nothing to lose on paper.”
“Definitely it’s hard when you get drawn against clubs like the ones we have, but I think it’s harder for them to draw Inter from the fourth seeding pot.
“I think all of these big clubs wanted to avoid us, and we’re just giving it a go because when you’re drawn in such a difficult group you play these games in, let’s say, a more relaxed manner because you’ve got nothing to lose on paper.
“It’s a bit like what happened last year with Roma. We’ve just got to believe, then it’s all down to us. It was a great draw for the personal experiences, but if you see the calibre of these sides I don’t think it was really the draw you want. But in the end, we’ve put ourselves in a strong position and this proves we can hold our own with them.”
He then went on to speak about tomorrow night’s game with Tottenham Hotspur.
“We’ll go there to play our game because you’ve always got to take your own strengths into games like these. We’re in a good position in the group so it is all down to us.”
He concluded the interview by recalling his Roma experiences in the Champions League and comparing the two sides.
“At Roma we had a really good side and Inter are equally as strong, but when you’re in a group where people are saying: ‘You won’t get through’ and then you do get through, you face the next games like finals and you’ve got nothing to lose because maybe you didn’t expect to get through.
“Last year with Roma, we lost 4-1 at Barcelona and then we won 3-0 at home which maybe nobody expected. But we had so much motivation to go through, and almost the same thing happened against Liverpool. This is football.
“It was a great experience with a great, strong group of lads, and I am seeing these same things here. I think that we’ve done really well with Inter so far and we’re showing that we deserve to go through, but there are two games left and we need to keep working the way we have done so far.”