MILAN - Roberto Mancini was full of praise for his team after they beat Juventus 3-0 in the Coppa Italia semi-final return leg only to go out on penalties.
"It was a great game, I'm really happy with our performance and the lads deserve credit. They were superb. I feel sorry for them because they deserved to reach the final," the coach told journalists after the penalty shootout.
"Inter were top of the league for 18 games and everyone criticised us. Then we ran into some problems and everyone criticised us. On Sunday an evenly balanced match was changed because of a defensive injury. We had the best chance to score in the first half, when they only threatened through Hernanes' long-range effort and when Murillo slipped.
'We're trying to do our best. Of course we're upset about the points we've dropped but that's football. We're a growing team and you'll get difficult times. Sometimes we do things well, sometimes less well. I hope this match gives us the strength to go on and fight for third place. I hope the team rediscover their self-confidence now because if we stay on the ball we can rack up lots of points.
"We've made some mistakes in the last few weeks but hopefully we'll carry on like tonight now. We have 11 games left and we want to do well in them, starting with Palermo. It's an important game, then we have another home match against Bologna. We need to play with intensity if we want to get back in the reckoning."
Mancini then provided an update on Geoffrey Kondogbia's situation after he had to be replaced at half time, before commenting on tonight's centre-back pairing and Eder's form.
"Kondogbia is having tests, fortunately it doesn't seem like anything serious.
"D'Ambrosio and Juan Jesus both did well in defence but it wasn't a makeshift solution because we'd already tried out Danilo in that position. They all played well tonight.
"Eder is a fine player and he plays great football. He's just not getting much luck at the moment."
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