Mister Ruben Amorim spoke to DAZN at the end of Genoa 1-2 Milan. These are all the statements made by the Portuguese coach after the victory at the Luigi Ferraris:
A response was expected after the Europa League match, and it arrived. But this is only the beginning. What positive things do you take away from the game above all?
“I am proud of my players. The most important thing was to be competitive, as I said before the match. If we approach every match like this, then we are one step closer to being able to win them all. There are moments when you manage to play very well, and there are also other moments when we changed the way we played, went strongly for the second balls and played a different kind of football. And that is what great teams do: they play differently within the same match. I am really satisfied with my players today.”
Amorim, where can this team finish in the league?
“What I can say is that we can win every match, but I cannot assure you that we will reach this level of awareness by the end of the season. I do not feel that we have this kind of consistency yet. And I do not want to say anything more than ‘we can win the next match’. Because that is the feeling I have when I watch the team. But it depends on many things. If we had had everyone available, we would certainly have been better in the Europa League too. This cycle of matches has been tough for us with everything that has happened. But I can say that if we are competitive, then we can win every league match. Let us focus on this and take it day by day.”
What does being competitive depend on? Amorim answered:
“It is mentality. When you are a player, there are no ‘days off’. If you play for Milan, for these clubs, there are no days off. You cannot turn up as we did on Thursday and then switch back on for Sunday. It is not possible; it is not something that will work. It is not a physical condition, it is a question of having anxiety about defeat. If you have ‘panic’ about defeat, it does not mean that you are afraid of losing, but that you are aware that losing is the end of the world. That is the feeling I want my teams to have.”
How far along is Gonçalo Ramos's development? Today he provided an assist... Amorim replied:
“I think it is difficult for a striker when he does not score goals. But I will repeat it: we do not spend much time in the final third of the pitch. We have possession, we are improving in playing out from the back, but we are missing this. When we are consistently in the final third of the pitch, Gonçalo will score a great many goals. It is a team problem; we are not helping Ramos, but he is helping us a lot. It is a process, a journey. And we are not yet at the point where we are so dominant that Ramos spends most of his time in the opposition's penalty area. We are still a long way from that.”
