Sandro Tonali believes that AC Milan can come back against Inter in the second leg, and insisted the team must come off the field feeling like they gave everything.
Milan know that they have a mountain to climb if they are to reach the final of the Champions League as they were beaten 2-0 in the first leg by Inter on Wednesday night, having been rocked by a rapid start from Simone Inzaghi’s men.
The first goal was a poor one to concede with Edin Dzeko beating Davide Calabria to a corner and firing into the top corner, then Henrikh Mkhitaryan latched onto Federico Dimarco’s feed before strolling through the middle of the defence to make it 2-0.
The second half performance was better from Milan as they came close to halving the deficit when Tonali hit the post, but they were unable to get a goal and thus must score twice without reply tomorrow.
Tonali was interviewed by Sky Italia on the eve of the game against Inter, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
“Well, we had the strength to start again in the Champions League. We will give everything to do it tomorrow too after doing it with Tottenham and Napoli,” he said.
On the match: “We have to do something more than 100%, it’s a match in which everything is more important and it will be the most difficult. We’re starting two goals down, but we’ll have to give 110%”
On suffering: “It hurt to concede two goals in three minutes and but they didn’t score in the second half. We responded after the second goal.”
On believing in going through: “I believe in it a lot, it will be fundamental. A goal can change the whole game, which will become long. You have to enter the field concentrated and give everything.”
On the fans: “They gave us something extra, in good and bad times. Yesterday they showed us that they are by our side, we love them. We are all united and we want to go in the same direction.”
On the mentality: “The mind is free. The start is one of the most important things. We saw it in the first leg, we will have to try not to make mistakes and try to start strong. The head is free and we have the strength to free it after two defeats. We are all united, we must not give up an inch in all 90 minutes.”
On Inter going above Milan in the league: “Something has changed and something must change tomorrow. It will take a long time to get there but we need to change.”
On the atmosphere at Milanello: “Like last year, like two years ago. You breathe the air of Milan, you never take a break. We have to be concentrated on ourselves, work well tomorrow and today and get off the pitch: ‘We have given everything’.”
