Thus the Nerazzurri coach in the press room before Bologna-Inter: “Frattesi and De Vrij will have more opportunities. Bologna will put a spoke in your wheels”
Tomorrow exactly sixteen days will have passed since the Super Cup semi-final on Saudi soil and those lopsided penalties that robbed Inter of their first title of the season, and here Bologna, the great taboo of this era, is back on the Nerazzurri road.
the match
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Cristian Chivu will not take his team into retreat, as per tradition, but he has worked a lot on the best way to stop that devil Italian: “We know that it is a difficult match against an opponent who puts everyone in difficulty because he has identity and intensity – said the Romanian coach in the conference on the eve of Appiano -. Bologna puts a spoke in your wheels in simple things, they have very strong inverted wingers and midfielders who have structure, then they know how to take you as a man and have skill, right timing, determination. Also if you beat the first pressure, many come back, so we have to be careful and do some things better with a great sense of responsibility.” His team has become nastier, as we know, but fouls are a central element of this new, well-tested game: “Some say we are… blacksmiths, but I like it when my players have the courage to go into the tackle and risk a foul in order to recover the ball. The fact that we risk something more depends on the desire to immediately play vertically.”
useless controversy
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Arrows continually arrive towards his camp from other cities, especially Naples, but Chivu in a zen version seems immune to any politics outside the field. He reiterated it again now, firmly: “The way I have always seen football, as a player and as a coach, controversies and discussions outside the game bring nothing, they do not count for the final result, they are useless: they have little impact except on a media level, they have nothing to do with this sport which should remain as such. Personally, I laugh when there is too much talk about things that have nothing to do with reality, they make me concentrate instead on my work… We can only say that, at the moment, there are five teams that can compete for the championship, the difference is minimal.” As always, there’s no point in harping on the market which, at the moment, has a Portuguese name and surname: “Cancelo? I’m talking about Luis Henrique, Diouf, Dumfries, Darmian: I prefer to concentrate on them and on the reality of the facts. De Vrij and Frattesi away? I’m not afraid of anything, I trust their professionalism, they are primarily responsible for what happens. It’s true that they are the two who have played the least, for physical reasons as in the case of Davide or techniques as in the case of Stefan, but they will both have many chances to play.” The last joke on the compressed calendar and the inevitable rotations in this January of compressed matches: “When we had a crowded calendar, we always tried to change thinking about our meritocracy. We have 25 players, all useful and all able to take the field, I can’t do without this concept”.