Conte: “We’ll need conviction and the hunger to win”

APPIANO GENTILE – On the eve of Inter vs. Ludogorets, the UEFA Europa League round of 32 second leg set to take place at 21:00 CET on Thursday 27 February behind closed doors at San Siro, Antonio Conte spoke to Sky Sport about the game ahead: “First and foremost, we have to qualify, because reaching the round of 16 is the most important objective. We’re starting with a good result from the first leg, but we know that all matches pose hidden dangers and the game starts again from 0-0, so we’ll have to play well with the necessary conviction and hunger to win.”

After the postponement of Inter vs. Sampdoria, the game against Pavel Vrba’s team will be played behind closed doors in compliance with the laws issued by the Italian Government. Conte commented: “I think football needs the crowd, because experiencing the atmosphere is the best thing about the game. Having said this, these decisions have been taken with public health in mind and I hope that everything returns to normal as soon as possible. We were very focused on playing the match against Sampdoria, so the fact it was postponed altered a few things, but we’ve trained and we’re preparing to continue this run of games we’re on, then at the end of it all we’ll see how we’ve fared.”

A word on Sanchez and Eriksen: “These are the games that can act as some more in-depth physical and tactical examinations to see if certain players, like Sanchez due to his injury and Eriksen due to his recent arrival, are progressing and understanding more and more of what we want from them both in attack and defence, as well as seeing what type of condition they’re in from a physical point of view.”

Finally, on the team’s current form and this stage of the season: “This is just a phase of the season, all the cycles we face determine how the season goes based on the results we get. I said at the start of this cycle that it would be extremely tough, that only once it’s over would we know what ambitions we can have, where we’ll be in the table and what kind of situation we’ll be going on to face.”