On October 14 at 3:00 AM Beijing time (CET), Inter will host Club Brugge in the second matchday of the UEFA Champions League group stage. Ahead of the match, Inter manager Christian Kivu attended a press conference. This article covers the second part of the press conference.

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【Kivu: Fighting for the Champions League is a mission inherent to the status of a great club】

【Kivu: We must express our sincere gratitude to Sommer for these incredibly brilliant three years】

Good afternoon, coach. Compared to almost every other Serie A team, Inter consistently maintains exceptionally high competitiveness, never dropping below a certain standard of play. In other words, from various perspectives, the team demonstrates remarkably consistent and consistently high-level performance. However, you continue to emphasize that this team still has enormous potential for improvement, which is certainly very reasonable. So I would like to ask: in your view, is there a specific aspect where you believe the team most urgently needs improvement and refinement right now?

We have deeply internalized and clearly understood that we must highly value all the results we have achieved through hard work and dedication. Because of this, nothing is taken for granted, and we never underestimate any opponent. We possess mature tactical thinking – I believe we have established a mentality that compels us to take the field with a strong sense of responsibility, with the right attitude – though there is still room to grow in our mentality – with abundant determination, with a strong desire to control the game and dominate across the field, while enjoying football and maintaining the precise sense of responsibility necessary for success.

The reason we say there is still room to grow is that, based on our philosophy, our tactical vision, and our ambitions, there are many things we absolutely can and should do better. Yes, that is exactly what I mean. I speak of a group of players with exceptionally high individual quality and absolutely top-level ability. Within the team, extremely healthy competition for positions significantly raises the intensity and quality of daily training sessions and elevates the strategic level of our collective ambition, which is exactly what we desired.

And again, a great club with grand ambitions must possess this type of thinking and must build such a strong squad as we have. One could even say that, in my view, there is always room for further optimization even in squad composition – this is not criticism of the club but a necessary requirement in striving for perfection.

Good afternoon, Christian. Last season, despite victories over strong opponents like Borussia Dortmund away, we ultimately missed direct qualification to the top eight by just one point. Now the upcoming fixtures include home matches against Club Brugge, home against Shakhtar Donetsk, then an away challenge at Feyenoord, and finally a home match against Stuttgart. On paper, Inter should confidently collect around 10 points from these four matches. Does the team realize that under no circumstances can these four games afford any distraction or complacency?

We follow the principle of fighting match by match, focusing only on the next one. If we look at the bigger picture or macro perspective of this short, seven-match competition, we need to make up for what we fell short on, but right now we are concentrating only on the first game. Because with a congested schedule playing every three days, we cannot afford to be excessively ambitious. Therefore, the most important match today is tomorrow's match.

Moreover, tomorrow we will face an ambitious opponent – Club Brugge is extremely dominant and aggressive both in attack and defense. Whether it is possession or defensive phases without the ball, they demonstrate extremely proactive tactical thinking: they will press you high and will deploy a large number of players in attack when in possession. So this will certainly be a challenging match. However, we are extremely well prepared for all of this, because in the Champions League no match can be won easily.

Переведено ИИ.

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