24/01/2003

[translated by MANUELA]

"I DON’T MOVE FROM LAZIO"

Simone Inzaghi plays again since the first minute after a month and a half. They wanted to sell him to Udinese, he has refused.

ROMA – They have tried to sell him and he has been disappointed. Very much. Now he wants to prove Lazio that it wouldn’t be right to get rid of him so quickly. Simone Inzaghi is angry. He clenches his fists. He stamps his feet. He wants to come back on the field and win back his team. Mancini should satisfy him already next Sunday against Reggina, preferring him to Enrico Chiesa to substitute Corradi who is disqualified. And Inzaghino is ready to take the opportunity to prove that the club can and must still count on him.

In fact the forward has been at the centre of an important negotiation with Udinese: an exchange between him and Roberto Muzzi. The business is temporarily vanished just because of the refuse of Lazio’s player that doesn’t want to move from the Capital.

For Inzaghi, who has a contract with Lazio till 2005, it must be reported also the requests arrived to the club from Atalanta and some English clubs (Tottenham among the others). But Simone’s intention is clear, as also his manager Tullio Tinti makes clear: "He won’t move from Rome. He wants Lazio and he is sure to be able to play for a place in the first team. At this moment there aren’t opened negotiations, from June we will do our valuations."

On Sunday, against Reggina, the forward should play since the beginning. It doesn’t happen to him since last 13 December, in the match of Uefa Cup lost against Sturm Graz. Then the trainers’ choices and the usual problems at the back have kept him far from fields (the last presence dates back to 22 December: 8 minutes in the championship’s match against Bologna). Now he has come back, the work done with Dr Fanton has been successful and the determination he has proved in the last 2 days of training in Formello seems to have convinced also Mancini. Chiesa isn’t on form yet while Inzaghi seems ready to break the world.  "I feel better, I would like very much to play against Reggina," he had said already last Sunday watching Lazio-Udinese from the Olympic stands. And it will be so, but with the awareness that this time he can’t make mistakes.

[La Gazzetta Dello Sport]