APPIANO GENTILE – It's Walter Mazzarri's day. Inter's new coach spoke to the gathered media at a press conference at the Centro Sportivo Angelo Moratti in Appiano Gentile this morning.
Read what he had to say here on inter.it:
Ten years in Serie A and you've never been sacked. How would you describe yourself as a coach? What's your secret?
"First of all, hello everybody. I don't have any secrets as such and besides it's not for me to say certain things. I think in my twelve years as a coach I've built my name and my career by insisting on respect for the rules and a mutual respect between the players and those I've worked with. In football success – and thankfully things have always gone well for me so far - is achieved by paying attention to detail and following a work ethic. Football is a sport but it's played at such a high professional level nowadays that I think those key qualities are almost as important as the ability of the players and the coach.
"Going a bit further, it's the players who have got to know me best down the years and they tend to see me as a coach who does a lot of work on tactics, a tactician who tries to give his teams a clearly defined structure. Looking at my career I think there have been times when I've managed to do that to great effect and others when it's gone less well, in terms of the football played, at teams where as often happens you see the improvement towards the end once everyone has got used to each other.
"In modern-day football, and this is where we can talk about Inter, you need to be extremely well prepared both physically and mentally and that's why I insist on a work ethic – that's sacred to me. The first thing I'll say to the players when I see them is that training is sacred: if you miss a training session there must be an extremely good reason for it, otherwise you need to be training and pulling out all the stops. If a player is skilful, he'll show that he's better than the others on the pitch."
Given that Napoli are going to be playing in the Champions League, and given the interest Roma showed in you, why did you choose Inter?
"I'd like to clarify this point because sometimes you hear things that just aren't true, even though I felt I'd been clear about it. For a start, my decision to leave Napoli was in no way connected to anything else. I decided to bring an end to my four years at Napoli at the start of the season, as you all know. Last summer the club offered me a contract extension which I turned down, as I thought I'd probably leave the club after my fourth year as motivation levels would have dropped. I explained that after the last game of the season against Roma. I didn't leave Napoli to come to Inter, or to go to Russia or anywhere else. At that point, having made the decision to leave Napoli, I might have taken a year off if I hadn't received an offer that really motivated me. I had lots of offers, one of which was from Inter and the president wanted to meet me. I was totally taken. I felt ready and up for it so I chose to go down this new path with Inter. I just want to go on record and explain what happened again so that people don't twist things."
