GUANGZHOU - A day on from the match against AC Milan and 24 hours before Inter face Real Madrid, Roberto Mancini has stressed that any difficulties posed by having to accommodate such a tight schedule are outweighed by the benefits obtained by his team.
Speaking from Tianhe Stadium, where Inter's second International Champions Cup match against Los Blancos is to be played tomorrow, he said: "It's hard to play two games in 48 hours against teams like Real and AC Milan. That's why we basically opted to go with two completely different line-ups."
At least the close proximity of tomorrow's fixture offers Inter a chance to bounce back immediately from the defeat to AC Milan. "The support in China has been fantastic and we always try to play our best to repay the fans for their incredible enthusiasm. Our aim is always to win but our priority over the summer remains getting minutes in our legs and working as hard as we can to get ourselves as fit as possible."
Alongside Mancini in the press room was last season's topscorer in Serie A Mauro Icardi and he was also keen to talk about the positives from Inter's China tour.
The Argentine striker said: "Apart from the result, we played well against Milan and Bayern. We're grafting really hard. We need to do lots of work on tactics to get us where the boss wants us to be."
Icardi was then quizzed about the rumours linking him with a move to Real Madrid before he signed a new deal with Inter recently. "Yes, it's true they did enquire about me but I always wanted to stay at Inter. I knew we were going to have a great team this season. We growing and hopefully we'll have a big year and can secure European football again."
After facing off against Sinisa Mihajlovic yesterday, Mancini will find himself up against another friend in Rafa Benitez tomorrow. "I said hello to Rafa but he didn't tell me if he's going to rotate his squad."
That was the cue for a question about the debate sparked back in Italy following Mancini's own rotation in the first half against AC Milan.
"I'm really not interested in any debate that's going on in Italy. The fact Milan won the game changes very little today, although obviously I'd rather win every match. But that sort of talk is of no interest to me. What matters is that we're here playing against teams like Real and Bayern who are massive clubs. Perhaps it's hard to get a result against sides of this magnitude but it's a great help for our players' improvement."
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