Inter manager Antonio Conte has admitted that he hopes that Inter can take another step forward with their project in tomorrow night’s Europa League last 16 clash with Spanish outfit Getafe.
“Is the Europa League important to me? It doesn’t matter if it’s important to me, it’s an important competition for all of us. Especially for Inter,” he began his pre-match press conference ahead of the game.
“We speak for ourselves and not for the self. We will have to be good at trying to give our best without having regrets. We don’t know where our best will bring us but the important thing is that we will have to have no regrets. ”
Next the former Italian national team boss was asked if he feels under pressure at the moment.
“Let’s talk about the team, about Inter, about us. The pressure is the right one, the one we also had to finish the league with despite the fact that someone else won it.
“We started to face the pressure of having to recover positions in the standings and to keep them. Even the last three games with Genoa, Napoli and Atalanta have shown that this team is making many improvements and therefore I am very happy, I hope that tomorrow can be another step, beyond the result, to continue what we have done.”
Conte was then asked whether the team have reached the maturity level that he was wanting from them.
“The team has got the points they deserved to and although I think we have collected something less than what has been sown. Finishing with 82 points and in second place I think is a sign of a good season, with important progress.
“Now we get to play this tournament. We are ready, we know that we face a tough opponent and that it will be a “dirty” game but there is the mentality to enter the match in the right way.”
He was then asked for his thoughts on tomorrow night’s opponents at the Arena Auf’Schalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
“We have studied them and we saw that even against the big players of La Liga they were not spectacular. They suffered greatly against their opponents and brought home results with skimpy results.
“This says a lot about Getafe. They have two strong, structured attackers who help the team, they are good at reversing the action. We know it will be tough, but we will have to prove that we are going forward.”
In conclusion he was asked if winning the Europa League would be beneficial to the team’s growth.
“Winning breeds winning, there is little other to say than that. Winning brings condition, self-esteem and authority. It’s never easy and if you win, it means that you have reached a level that starts to be something important. So yes, winning would help the growth process at all levels both from an individual and collective point of view.”
If Inter are to get past Getafe, they will face either Rangers or Bayer Leverkusen in the quarter final stage of the competition.
Inter have experience of winning the competition under its former guise, the UEFA Cup, with the Nerazzurri having won it three times in their storied history, with all three wins coming during the 1990s.
