APPIANO GENTILE - "I remember when I was a young player there were only 13 or 14 players in a squad, there was no such thing as a long subs' bench like nowadays. One day I went up to my coach, Nils Liedholm, and I told him I wanted to go to another team so that I could play more and understand if I was cut out for the world of football, or if I should change job. I did leave then but many years later I'm still here. We all find ourselves at crossroads in life and when you do you need to be able to choose the right turning." That was how Ranieri answered when asked whether some of Inter's youngsters might join other teams to get more first-team experience.
The coach was asked about the team's athletic preparation ahead of the two-legged tie against Olympique Marseille in the Champions League: "Before then we have two small weeks to work in; we won't be doing any specific work. We have games every three days for another week, then after the Roma game we'll be able to work for five or six consecutive days. The coach's main aim will be to get those players who aren't quite at their best back up to full fitness, so we'll be trying to get Forlan and Stankovic into shape. Sneijder is already close to 100% and he'll certainly be there by the time we face Olympique Marseille."
On Stankovic's recovery time: "We add a little to his workload every day and Dejan is responding well. I think he pulled on his boots today, tomorrow we'll see how he's reacted. We're monitoring his progress day by day and his improvement has been constant, that's important and very positive."And on what it would mean to make it eight wins in a row tomorrow, Ranieri explained that, "If we win tomorrow all it means is three more points on the board. Other things are only important for the statistics, nothing else."
