Mourinho keeps faith in quick progress
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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José Mourinho is "absolutely sure" FC Internazionale Milano will qualify for the knockout rounds with a game to spare despite being held by a Werder Bremen team who were rewarded for a patient second-half approach.
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José Mourinho, Inter coach
We worked hard tonight and we played very well in some parts of the game. Bremen are a good team. They scored the equaliser and then defended with all their men. If there was a team who should have won it was Inter, but there are no ifs in football and we have to accept this result even if we don't like it. We cannot say we are in crisis. We've come from a defeat in our domestic league to a draw in the Champions League but we're in a good position in both competitions. Our situation in the group is in our control. In football you can never say 100 per cent but I'm absolutely sure that we'll qualify even before the last game in the group.
I think the three forwards combined well. Adriano played a great game but he is not fit enough yet to play for the entire 90 minutes. Balotelli is Balotelli. He produces some great moments but at times is a bit naïve. He had a good chance to score and didn't take it but he's still young and deserves our faith because he can improve a lot in the future. Pizarro is a great player which I knew because I signed him when I was at Chelsea. It's nothing new for me. Obviously I'm not happy he scored against me but if somebody had to score, I'm glad it was him.
Thomas Schaaf, Bremen coach
I respect any opponents, and especially a big team like Inter, but in the Champions League group stage it's vitally important to earn points away from home so we came here to attack. We didn't start well and Inter were the better team in the first 20 minutes but I was confident we could improve and we played with much more determination in the second half. We didn't play well up front in the first half, mainly because we were too quick to take shots whenever we had a chance.
At half-time I told my players to play with more patience in attack and that was the key to our equaliser in the second half. I don't think Inter sat back after taking the lead, but we did press them. However, at the end of the game Inter were back on the attack as my counterpart made a few attacking substitutions which forced us to defend. We played well overall but have to improve as we have no chance to progress to the knockout stages with only draws.