Conte: It’s an important victory, the fans deserved this win

Antonio Conte could not hide his happiness as he addressed the gathered media following Inter's 3-1 win away to Slavia Prague in the post-match press conference.

“We must be happy and proud, it is an impotant victory. We did good to manage the game in the best way and congratulations to the boys for the result,” he began.

“We were able to achieve this victory by thinking about what happened in the first meetings. In the end, we were rewarded on the field and we did not give up until the end and this is important as it enabled us to give satisfaction to the travelling fans who encouraged us until the end.

“We had prepared well for this game. I trust the players. We knew how to hurt them and we did that. I am happy, despite two goals being chopped off and conceding a penalty. It was a very good performance that allows the last game with Barcelona to have meaning.”

He then touched briefly on Barcelona before returning to speak about the game against Slavia.

“Barcelona are a strong team with great players, we will be playing at home in front of 80,000 Inter fans and I am happy because they deserve this situation for how they have supported us throughout the group. It was only right that we had the chance to progress.

“The key thing for us was to always stay in the game until the end. The team did this despite an incident that could have created a lot of nervousness. At the interval, I told the team to stay calm. We had an important performance in the second half and have shown that we wanted to win, as we did against Verona.”

He was then asked about strike force Romelu Lukaku and Lautaro Martinez.

“Neither of the two boys are finished products yet. Romelu has his own strengths and is a diamond in the mud. Lautaro is only 22-years-old and is working hard. We have a very young attack, excluding Alexis Sanchez who will be back soon.

“We also have Esposito, who is just 19. We have work to do still but I am convinced that with more work we can still grow.”

In conclusion he was asked if there was any stage of the game where he feared the side may not get the victory.

“Honestly, no. I was very calm and confident. I knew we had prepared for the match well, the boys knew what they had to do.

“I told them to continue doing what they had been doing and to raise the tempo ad the result will work in our favour. I am glad that it happened.

“There were several weird situations in the second half and the match seemed haunted. Let's not forget that both Borussia Dortmund and Barcelona both suffered here too.

“Slavia are a cut above the rest in their domestic league. They have strong players and came to win this match but we were beautifully compact and alive.”