MILAN – On Monday evening in Somma Lombardo, Massimo Moratti met the fans at the local Inter Club. It was an appointment with Nerazzurri tradition and history, since Angelo Moratti was born here in the province of Varese.
"I'm here for a thousand emotional reasons and one of them is that my father was born here in Somma Lombardo. I'm always happy to come back. I would have been sorry not to have come here today, in spite of all of the problems that come with losing to the bottom team in the league, but I was certain I'd find a warm welcome here and I have," said Massimo Moratti at the beginning of the speech to the fans who were there, which you can follow exclusively on inter.it and Inter Channel.
"Let's talk about serious issues regarding our champions," said the president as he launched into his speech. "Obviously I can't be very pleased with the way things have gone recently, but this is a team that has won so much and if they have won so much, it means the players fitted together well as a team and were also exceptional as individual players. We have become used to these players and we have also become used to each one's individual style, so it isn't easy to change them, because you'd have to find another player of the same standard and you wish you could find the same player when he was younger. It is difficult to find a model whose pieces you can change one by one, in order to have what you originally had straight away. So you can and you must do it slowly and calmly, and during this gradual transformation there will be times when things don't always go right. That's what's happening now, just like at the start of the season.
"I must say that the present situation," he went on, "is connected to the beginning of the year; a year which started badly. We were all confident that a new formation could spark off something, but it didn't. It was the opposite, so we had to change course in mid-flight and these changes were positive to an extent. But it is difficult for someone to take over at the helm when things are already underway. I'm talking about Claudio Ranieri who is a great person. He had a bit of trouble at the beginning but then managed to express himself better, motivate the team and achieve results. Then we had some bad luck, apart from the Roma match, which wasn't bad luck, it was just a very bad match. We were quite unlucky against Novara as we were against Palermo. So this didn't help Ranieri and as a consequence we weren't helped either. But this doesn't change the overall plan."
Massimo Moratti went into detail: "We keep talking about a project, which makes me think of someone talking to you about something which will happen who knows when... What project? We live football every week with all of the passion, the fear, the pain and the joy. So talking about a project is always a bit annoying. I believe that we are here every day trying to find a way to reach the end of the season with slightly more satisfaction than the minimum we are feeling at the moment. And we are working a lot on trying to understand how to build a team which can give us back more confidence than we thought we had at the beginning of the season. I thought this wasn't a bad team but unfortunately it wasn't the case... But I have confidence in the years to come, bringing in youth."
"Youngsters who have already been successful," he added, "who have the strength to stand up to Inter fans, who aren't the most easy-going: our fans aren't easily satisfied, you need a lot of character to live alongside them. We keep all these things in mind and we are working to try to build something positive. Something that must meet my ambitions, which are exactly the same as yours, starting to win again and winning more, much more that we have won so far. We'll go on without being satisfied with anything but the best results and try to get back to the top of the class. Top of the class with our character, our way of life which is different from that of the other teams because when we are successful we cause problems for ourselves, because we are always looking for a new challenge which is always further ahead."
The Nerazzurri history book tells us what we were, what we are now and what we will be: "We are not happy to sit back in our lives, but if you are an Interista that's just how you are. So I won't guarantee peace and quiet [smiling, Ed], but turmoil through which we will really get back to doing well. There's no doubt about that," concluded Massimo Moratti.
