Inter head coach Simone Inzaghi feels that the team got a big boost to their morale with their win over Liverpool at Anfield even though it was not enough to move on in the Champions League.
Speaking in a press conference after the match, as reported by FCInterNews, the coach also noted that he is hopeful that the conditions of Stefan de Vrij and Marcelo Brozovic aren’t too bad after they came off with injuries.
The Nerazzurri came away with a 1-0 win, handing Liverpool their first home defeat in over a year, but it still wasn’t enough to win the round of sixteen tie on aggregate.
Inter had always given themselves a mountain to climb by losing the first leg of the tie 2-0, but they didn’t look like a team who felt that they’d put it beyond themselves, even after going down a man in the second half.
Inzaghi saw his team play their football against one of Europe’s elite in a hostile and intimidating away ground, and he feels that they showed how far they’ve come with the display.
“The team had an excellent match, we feel regret over the match at the San Siro,” he said. “Over the two legs we were equal tothem, against a strong team in the form of Liverpool.”
“There is some regret,” he added, “because right at the the moment in which it seemed like they were suffering from the goal, Sanchez got a red card.”
“We have made a good impression,” he added, “the fact that after eleven years the team managed to make the round of sixteen, we faced probably the strongest team in Europe and we played on equal terms.”
“We put in two great performances,” he continued, “at San Siro probably even better, but matches sometimes turn on key episodes, at San Siro we had a great match for seventy-five minutes.”
“Tonight we did well on the pitch, suffering as we had too,” he continued, “We had a great journey, a bitter taste remains in our mouths especially over the result at the San Siro.”
He said of the performance that “It gives us a lot of self-belief. Now we have to see how we’ve come out of it because we have had a couple of injuries, let’s hope they’re nothing serious.”
“There is regret about the sending off because it came when we had the game by the scruff of the neck,” he said.
The coach concluded that “We did well tonight at a very difficult stadium and against a very strong, very technical team who are hard to play against.”