Inter Milan coach Simone Inzaghi feels that it would have been easy enough for him to shake things up at halftime against Benfica.
The coach spoke in a press conference after the 3-3 thriller, as reported by FCInterNews.
The stakes were not very high for yesterday evening’s match, in truth.
For Inter, there is still top spot in the group left to fight for. But the Nerazzurri have already secured their spot in the round of sixteen.
Therefore, there might have been a risk of this evening’s match passing by without much entertainment value or drama.
But regardless of what was at stake, the match that actually transpired on the pitch was a memorable one.
Inter found themselves 3-0 at halftime.
This followed a first half in which just about everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong for the Nerazzurri.
A heavily-rotated starting eleven failed to keep up with the pace of Benfica.
But Inzaghi stuck with the team that started on the pitch. And they produced a reaction.
The introduction of some regular starters further bolstered the Nerazzurri’s momentum.
And in the end, Inzaghi’s team turned it around – answering all three of Benfica’s first-half goals.
Inzaghi: Would’ve Been Easy To Make Changes At Halftime Vs Benfica
As far as how the team turned it around, Inzaghi said that “We spoke together with the guys.”
“We made some tactical changes,” he continued.
“But it wasn’t a problem of tactics, but of having the right approach and motivation, which can be lacking in matches of this type.”
“It would have been simple to make four or five changes,” Inzaghi noted.
“But none of my players were subpar.”
“We said to ourselves that one episode could change the match, and so it turned out to be the case.”
“In the end we could have won it,” the coach noted.
“And with a little more luck it could have happened.”
“I’ll take the performance,” he said. “I know that I don’t have eleven starters, but rather twenty.”
“And I have to find ways to give chances to play because they all work well in training,” Inzaghi said.
“I choose the players along with the club. I know what they can contribute.”
As far as why Benfica’s hattrick hero Joao Mario never worked out at Inter, Inzaghi said that “I’ve never coached him. I don’t know.”
“In the first match this season he was on the bench,” the Inter coach.
“And I was happy because he has quality.”
“Last season he also caused us a lot of problems as he did this evening,” he noted of the Portuguese international.
