PINZOLO – The day before Inter leave their summer training camp in Pinzolo, Andrea Stramaccioni was a guest on Inter Channel's L'Intervista programme. He looked back on the past week and reflected on how it has gone.
"I'm satisfied. It's been a different sort of pre-season because unlike other teams Inter have to ready earlier than usual," the Nerazzurri coach explained. "That means doing a different sort of preparation, not working towards the long term but to be ready for 2 August - without forgetting of course that we have to be ready for the start of the league campaign too."Every training session organised by Stramaccioni during the training camp in Val Rendena has been open to the fans: "I wanted the fans to be close to us because in the nine league games I was in charge of at the end of the season they were always behind us, even though we hadn't had the best of campaigns. I discussed it with the captain and we decided to make training open to everyone. It seemed like the right thing to do."
The coach was asked to explain some of the differences in coaching methods at first-team and youth level: "At the higher levels players have more consolidated experience, though you still might have to explain one or two things to them individually. What I can say is that in both cases I've seen highly motivated players who are determined to do well."
Stramaccioni was then asked for his thoughts on the reform of the Primavera championship: "It's a delicate topic but undoubtedly a big change. While lowering the age limit will mean youngsters taking the step up sooner and us seeing younger teams, Italian football must be prepared to bring in youngsters who are maybe still a little raw. You need bit of courage to do that."
What about Inter's youngsters? "There are specific plans for each of them. You have to have clear ideas and it's my task to figure out which of them will be able to make a contribution to Inter."A match between two Inter sides, one against a Trentino-based XI and tomorrow FC Koper, a team that was supposed to start their league campaign now and who are certainly further ahead in their preparations than the Nerazzurri. Each game sees Inter face tougher opponents: "We planned the difficulty level of our friendlies leading up to 2 August very carefully. Tomorrow's match in Rovereto will already be a different sort of game. I'm not interested in the result but in seeing progress. Then we've got the TIM Trophy and an exhibition match in Glasgow, an international fixture to prepare us for our Europa League opener. I also want to thank FC Koper. Inter might find they struggle tomorrow against a side that has been training for a while and is ready for competitive matches. But what we're interested in is being able to draw some useful conclusions. We have a bit of time now to work on and improve our game. We're keeping our mouths shut because we want our football to do the talking."
Stramaccioni also heaped praise on Javier Zanetti ("He arrived for pre-season training looking 101%, he's our captain, my captain, and anyone who says a bad word about him is just envious"), before commenting on how much he feels this Inter team is 'his': "I do feel this is my team. The focus I see from the lads in training gives me the signals I need to keep doing the best job possible."
