Schalke's Rangnick revels in San Siro madness

FC Schalke 04 coach Ralf Rangnick admitted that had anybody told him his side would beat FC Internazionale Milano 5-2 he "would have had him declared crazy" as he reflected on a career high. It leaves the UEFA Champions League holders with a mountain to climb next Wednesday and, coming after Saturday's 3-0 derby defeat by AC Milan, a deflated Leonardo acknowledged his side must rediscover their poise.

Ralf Rangnick, Schalke coach
We are not in the semi-finals just yet, but we have a pretty big chance now. We know we have to digest this first, before we can fully appreciate it. Even at 3-2 and more so at 4-2 and after the second yellow for Chivu I was certain we would not lose anymore. In the end, we could have scored even more. It is surely the best game of my career. Had someone told us before the match that we would beat Inter by three goals, we would have had him declared crazy.

We saw Saturday's game here and how much space AC Milan were given so we decided to start with José Manuel Jurado, to play football. If you try to just defend against a team like Inter, you are asking for trouble. Still, the first half was incredible: it could have been 5-5 at half-time.

With [Klaas-Jan] Huntelaar sidelined it was clear we needed a solution for the position of central forward and Edu needs to play there; he is not a winger. He got a real chance tonight and took it. Today, we can celebrate a bit, but then we have to focus on Saturday.

Leonardo, Inter coach
It has been a very difficult week in every sense: first the derby knockout, now this heavy defeat against Schalke. Tonight's game started in the best possible fashion and it would have been difficult to predict what was to come. Early in the second half we missed a couple of chances and immediately Schalke scored their third.

They had six or seven shots and scored five goals, so in that we can feel hard done by. After their third and fourth goals responding became difficult, especially with ten men, and in the end we lacked balance, as we did on Saturday against Milan. We played a different game tonight, changing several things, but still that was missing.

It's difficult to think about mounting a recovery in the second leg, but we'll try to capture the best possible result. Unfortunately, the crucial period of the season has come at the wrong time for us. It took a lot of effort to climb the league standings and Inter always play to win: it's the only way we know.