Mourinho: Italian Football Faces a Global Struggle

Jose Mourinho believes one of his responsibilities as the new Internazionale coach will be to help rehabilitate the image of Italian football abroad. Speaking ahead of an exhibition game in Yokohama, in which he will coach an international XI against a Japanese side captained by Hidetoshi Nakata, Mourinho told Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport that Serie A needed to make changes if it was to avoid losing more ground on the Premier League in England and La Liga in Spain.

Mourinho said that Italy can recover the gap "by taking on this global struggle, all together," before suggesting teams would need to take a less cynical approach to winning, and focus their efforts on producing football that is enjoyable to watch. "We have to begin with a winning mentality in every game. We have to request that, if you don't win, you at least play well, and that if you lose while entertaining you can't be criticized."

After a season in which two supporters were killed in separate incidents while traveling to Serie A matches, and in which away supporters were banned from traveling to a number of games, Mourinho said that changing fans' attitudes was essential.

"[We must] make the fans more responsible and change their relationships with the police," said Mourinho. "In other countries we don't see nice images. We see violence, deaths, fans who are banned from traveling to away games.

"I will never forget that my bench at Chelsea was three meters away from the fans: I could see fathers, sons, women, children, families. There football was without fear, in 20 years time those kids will be passionate fans. I can take my son to the stadium and be calm: whatever the result, life will go on. I would be proud, one day, to have contributed to changing calcio. Why shouldn't things be like this, one day, in Italy too?"

Mourinho remained coy over his summer transfer plans, insisting that the "greatest signing" president Massimo Moratti could make would simply be to hang on to all the players Inter already have. Asked about Euro 2008, meanwhile, he admitted feeling a degree of sadness that England would not be involved.

"England have massive support, always travel with thousands of fans and have players like Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney," he said. "These are the kinds of players that Euros and World Cups need - so from that individual point of view they will miss them."

He went on to suggest that Spain could be favorites to lift the trophy on June 29.

"I think Spain have a lot of good players, many players that are playing outside of Spain who have adapted to a different football culture," he continued. "They have players in England playing at this level and I think that is very important for them.

"Real Madrid players, in my opinion, are in great condition because the season was quite easy for them. It was not difficult. They didn't play [much] Champions League because they were out in the last 16 and the league was easy for them. The same applies to Valencia players because they didn't play many matches during the season. So I believe they can arrive into a good position."