APPIANO GENTILE - "Inter have shown they have a good foundation." This is how Andrea Stramaccioni began in answering the many questions at the press conference. Among the themes that were touched on were the current state of his team and the transfer market. He stated: "It's normal that in early August coaches feel their team is lacking a little something. But I'll comment on Inter on 31 August. For now I'll only say that the foundation is good and I believe I'll be able to analyse Inter when the season starts. I received good feedback in Split, and that's positive. Then I also saw things that aren't going well. I know this and I'm working on it with my players. But regarding personality and how Inter carried out the match, the feedback was good. Now we'll continue to work, without being overjoyed for the result or worried about our defects. We know we have work to do."
Then the discussion moved straight to the transfer market and players that are sought after as well as those who were missed out on. Stramaccioni showed he was relaxed and had clear ideas when explaining his beliefs, namely that "an individual cannot change the idea of a team. I believe it's important to go with players that are functional and useful. A player's characteristics are often more important that his name. The problem would be if a player were to arrive with characteristics that don't function in our way of playing. That you might miss out on your first target, as you put it, or your second or third – that's just paper talk really."
The coach continued: "When I came here there was enormous scepticism regarding Guarin, for example, and now he's among the most important players of our season. Therefore, the functionality of a player in the project is more important than a name; what matters is that players arrive here at Inter who can function within the ideas of the coach. Then as far as names go there are those more famous than others, and those that receive more publicity. Did the Lucas transfer go up in smoke? Perhaps it's the case that we're following four players like Lucas while you journalists have found out about two of them. What matters is having clear ideas about what is useful to me. I don't think that there's a coach anywhere who, in May, singles out 10 players and then sees all 10 arrive. It's a matter of market laws. I'd be worried if on 31 August all of the players with the desired characteristics had disappeared, but it's only the 8th of the month."
Then Stramaccioni commented on the Paris Saint-Germain 'phenomenon', a variable capable of shattering every pattern: "I believe that Paris Saint-Germain are so exceptional in the history of football that in my opinion it's inappropriate to comment on them. They represent something that goes off the charts. With so much capital their operations go beyond the market, objectively speaking. I respect PSG's work but it's not up to me to make comparisons. We have our own path to follow. They took two players who interested us, but there were other teams interested in them as well. Is Leonardo ungrateful? No, come on. He played two tricks on us and two on AC Milan... So we're even," concluded a joking Stramaccioni.
