Gabriele Cioffi spoke to Udinese TV on Saturday about the challenge facing his side – and their desire to do well – when they host Inter at Dacia Arena on Sunday.
Udinese and Inter are Serie A's two form sides, averaging 2.2 and 2.4 points per game respectivelty in April. What sort of game are you expecting?
“The bar has been raised significantly: we've been through an obstacle course but this game is a veritable high jump. We're playing the reigning champions, a team that's been playing together since 2019. It's a game we're excited about playing. We're ambitious and focused. We're excited because it's hard not to be for a game like this, especially as we're going to be playing with Dacia Arena full again. We're ambitious because you should always believe you can overcome the odds, whether you're Udinese, Inter, Chelsea or Liverpool. We're focused because we know it's going to be a very tough game in which we'll need to dig in and hold on.
Udinese beat Fiorentina in midweek while Inter lost to Bologna? What are you expecting from the Nerazzurri, who will be without Hakan Calhanoglu. Alessandro Bastoni and possibly Samir Handanovic too?
“Inter are the champions. If you're the champions, it means you have players who know how to bounce back after a mistake. They're going to be angry, fired up and determined but so will we. As for the missing players, if we're not worrying about ours, we're certainly not worrying about theirs. “
How have you prepared for the match?
“Our preparation for this game has been mainly about rest and recovery. It's our fifth game in two weeks and we're not used to that. The challenge is to be physically and mentally ready for all of them. In this case our physical preparation has been to rest. There's not much we need to prepare for mentally because I'm lucky to work with very ambitious players.”