Legendary former Inter striker Sandro Mazzola is looking forward to this evening’s Champions League clash between his former club and Real Madrid.

Speaking to Spanish news outlet AS, the 78-year-old gave his thoughts on the significance of this evening’s Champions League group stage opener between two major European teams.

Mazzola won the European Cup twice with Inter, back to back in 1964 and 1965, helping to establish an enduring European reputation for the Nerazzurri.

Real, meanwhile, remain the most decorated team in the history of Europe’s top competitions, winning thirteen trophies between the European Cup and the Champions League.

The two sides will face each other knowing that beyond the hugely significant factor of competing for progression to the knockout rounds of this season’s edition of the competition, the match will carry a huge symbolic meaning given their respective histories and statures.

“It will certainly be a good match,” Mazzola said, “even though I can’t make any clear predictions about who will win. At one point I think Inter could be the favourites, then I think about it and see Real Madrid as better… I can’t make up my mind.”

“When you enter the pitch thinking you are a champion, things usually don’t go well,” he said of the Nerazzurri approaching the game as reigning Scudetto holders. “The coach has to take the players and tell them: ‘We are not champions. We have to work.”

On approaching the match after the losses of major players in the summer, Mazzola said, “It will be difficult, that’s for sure. But Inter have the ability to do as they did last year. Nowadays, the club’s finances are very important. If you don’t have balanced acounts, you have to sell. And there is no problem with that.”

On his memory of the 1964 European Cup final against Real Madrid, Mazzola said, “It was incredible. When we were about to take the pitch, we were both teams waiting in the tunnel: I saw Alfredo [Di Stefano], who was my idol, the best in the world. And my teammates started to go onto the pitch, and I stood there looking with my jaw dropped.”

“And the last ones who came out had to wake me up: ‘Come on and play or go on stage to see Di Stefano?’ It was the greatest thing, the greatest moment of my life.”

Mazzola went on, “He was old and I was young (I was 21 at the time; Di Stefano was on the verge of 38). And I just wanted to show him that I was very good, as he was important to me. He was my idol.”