Inter Milan Vice-President Javier Zanetti sees winning the Champions League in his current role as a “dream.”
Speaking on Italian broadcaster DAZN, via FCInterNews, the Nerazzurri executive also expressed confidence that the team can repeat their current season.
As a player, Zanetti won every trophy available with Inter.
The Argentine captained the Nerazzurri to numerous league titles. He also wore the armband as the Nerazzurri lifted the Champions League trophy to complete the European Treble in 2010.
As Inter Vice-President, Zanetti has also helped win numerous trophies.
These include this season’s Serie A title. That is the second that Zanetti has won in his current role.
And Inter also reached last season’s Champions League final.
But to date, the Nerazzurri have not won Europe’s biggest club competition with Zanetti working behind the scenes, as they had done while he was a player.
Javier Zanetti: “Dream” To Win Champions League As Vice-President
As far as his ultimate goal as Inter Vice-President, Zanetti said that “The dream would be to win the Champions League as a club director. That would be fantastic.”
Regarding the secret to this season’s success, Zanetti said that “All the guys have felt important to the team.”
“Everyone has given their contribution,” the Vice-President continued.
“I’m thinking of Carlos Augusto, Darmian. A very intelligent player.”
“We won quite a few matches in the final minutes because we always kept believing. Look at Frattesi’s goals.”
Zanetti then said that “Now the most difficult thing will be to keep winning.”
“How do we do that? By working the way we have been, with humility.”
“We’ve won a great title. I think the conditions are there to do it again, because we have a strong group – from a personal point of view as well as on the pitch.”
As far as Lautaro Martinez staying this summer, Zanetti was confident. “You can rest assured,” the Inter executive said. “He’ll be here next season and he’ll be captain.”
Meanwhile, Zanetti also gave his thoughts on the growth of Hakan Calhanoglu playing a holding midfield role.
“He accepted a great challenge,” he said of the former AC Milan midfielder.
“The coach put a lot of trust in him. Now Calha feels like he is at the centre of both phases of play.”
Zanetti then noted the background of Marcus Thuram’s signing for Inter. “Piero [Ausilio, Inter’s Sporting Director] and [Dario] Baccin did well,” he said.
“They’d been following him for a long time.”
“We waited for him to recover from his knee injury,” Zanetti said of Thuram. “We had faith in him.”
“He adapted to Serie A immediately, and found a good understanding with Lautaro. That was crucial.”
Then, Zanetti opened up about the soap opera with Romelu Lukaku last summer.
“No one disputes Lukaku’s quality,” he said. “He played very well for us, we won the title with Antonio [Conte] as coach.”
“He decided not to stay. No one expected that, especially the timing of it.”
“Maybe we would have changed our strategy,” Zanetti said of the possibility of Lukaku having remained at Inter last summer.
“It was also a big challenge for us to find backup targets.”
“But we did very well,” Zanetti added. “We created a group that has been brilliant on a personal level.”
