APPIANO GENTILE – On Andrea Stramaccioni's mind is Udinese, and Inter will play
them tomorrow in the Stadio Friuli. And he always has in mind a "simple
agreement" - as he called it - with president Massimo Moratti: to win. The
words are simple, but putting them into action is anything but that. The coach
knows this but it certainly does not frighten him. And so he's battling because
the words "to win" are becoming reality, match by match.
Stramaccioni spoke at the press conference the day before the match: "The agreement is there and came about within the first hour and a half of those famous two hours in which we spoke. In the end he told me, 'Coach, you have to win. We have to win.' It's a trivial and simple agreement [smiling]. To a certain extent I think it's a clause that the Inter president will include for the next hundred years. He'll ask that of all the coaches of this team. It's something simple, an anecdote, a joke, but it really happened: he asked this of us. To do well and to win. It's an Inter clause, because when you're with Inter winning is a must."
And this is what Stramaccioni's team will try to do in every possible way in Udine, although "the overall quality of Udinese is undeniable and even more so at home. Their home pitch is their strength. Their current position in the standings has been largely due to their home performances. The difficulty of the game is clear. Is there a surprise solution to come out on top? If there were I certainly wouldn't say so. What kind of surprise would it be then?" said the smiling coach.
He then analysed the situation with clarity: "We could become the perfect victim of this Udinese team due to the characteristics that they have and that we have. So I think it's correct to keep Inter as an assertive team, but at the same time to work in order to keep Udinese from using their weapons against us; their ability to counter and to attack the space we leave behind us. I don't believe in extremism but rather in ideas, and tomorrow we'll need the right mixture. Even in a difficult away match Inter must maintain our own ideas and identity, but without letting it cause us harm. One thing is your identity, and I believe that identity and ideas must be maintained. Then, however, there are the individual matches. It's necessary to seek a balance. Udinese have unique characteristics that could do us harm and we're working to make sure that doesn't happen, but without misrepresenting the idea we're working on. Again, it takes a mixture of maintaining our characteristics and having some strategies to counter their strengths."
But would winning from here until the end of the season mean staying for Stramaccioni? "This I honestly don't know. Winning from here until the end is a dream, but that period of time doesn't exist for me now. Only Udinese v Inter does. And Udine is one of the most difficult grounds in all of Italy. Anything can happen. We'll see," answered the coach.
