Gennaro, 'Rino', Gattuso

shakes hands strongly, self-assured, dressed in black and with a shy smile.

He talks sincerely about football and life which, at just turned 45, are the same for him.

He admits to being worried about Valencia's bad run and calls for reinforcements before facing Real Madrid (this Wednesday, 8:00 p.m.) From his admired

Carlo Ancelotti

for the first time.

Are you still angry about the team's two defeats in the league? For a coach, anger has to pass quickly, even if it doesn't show on your face.

It was a great disappointment, a game without desire and without rhythm, so I would be crazy if I weren't angry. Did you expect the League like that? Yes, very difficult.

Everyone thinks that tiki-taka is played and it is not.

I was very clear that it was not like that. And Valencia?

Last year, when they asked me to be a coach, the team worked very differently and it was clear to me that I would try another type of football.

The team is brave, but we have lost points in the last ten minutes of games that we had controlled. Have you ever wanted to jump onto the field, put on the captain's armband? I already knew that it was a young team, and that was not is an excuse.

You can improve the quality of the game and also the mentality.

Berlusconi, Galiani, Di Laurentis and now Lim

Are there similarities? The difference is that Galiani and Di Laurentis were more present in the city.

With Peter [Lim] I have been lucky because I have met him several times and I have gone to Singapore.

It is different when the owner is present and it is easier to talk.

It's a little more difficult that way, but I'm happy with the relationship I have.

Yesterday I spoke to him via Zoom because he can't come. In today's football, would Gattuso be as important as he was? I don't know.

It depends on how the coach wants to play.

I was a player who gave everything for my team, on the field I knew what I had to do and in the locker room I knew my importance.

He did everything with pleasure.

I never knew that he was a leader, I was just fulfilling my role, which was to steal as many balls as possible for the team.

I had it very clear.

He has recognized many times that this effort made him important.

Is that enough today? It is synonymous with intelligence.

Not only in sports, but in life it is essential that a man knows what his role is and how he can improve the people around them.

I call it humility.

Humble people know what he has to do.

It's key. Does that tell your son

Francesco

[plays in the youth team for Valencia]? My son has a problem.

This year I am happy because he has changed his mentality.

He is understanding that he has to make sacrifices: lose kilos, enter the field with enthusiasm... and not always watch the videos of him when he played.

I was me and he is he.

It is not written that he has to be professional.

He has to have fun and be cool with himself, not always look at his father because everyone talks about him.

In these five or six months he has changed.

He is listening to me when I tell him that he has to do his job seriously.

Before he was not hungry and in life you have to be hungry, not only in sports.

If there is no hunger, things can be done, but if you want to be different, you have to think about working long hours. If I had not left his town, Schiavonea, so young, first to Peruggia and then to Glasgow,

Would Gennaro Gattuso not be the person he is today? I don't know.

But the day I left my town, it was very clear to me that I was not going to return home.

If things went wrong, I would go to Germany to work because I knew that everyone in town was waiting for me.

My strength has been to work, work and work.

I had difficult moments, but I was very clear that with work you can get there. He arrived at Glasgow Rangers and met

Paul Gascoigne

...Another very important thing.

She looked at him and knew that he had to do everything differently.

He was incredible, but he lived to the full.

I was an 18-year-old boy with a bit of a head and it was very clear to me that I had to live differently from Paul.

He was talented and I had to train seven or eight hours a day to improve.

He had everything, but he didn't work. He says that his father liked them with players with a good touch, does he like his teams?

My father all his life has liked technical players like

Gianni Rivera

and I the first poster that I put a pose in my room of

Salvatore Bagni

, who was an aggressive midfielder.

Now I think he likes my teams. Do we have a distorted image of Gattuso? My wife is the person who knows me best.

It also happened to me as a player who seemed to always be angry.

Every game for me was a war, it was life.

Now it's the same.

I always want to win, I feel bad when I lose and I have a shitty face.

But off the pitch I'm a different person.

Very shy, I like to interact with people... I have a different image because I didn't like to talk a lot with the press, I don't have Tiktok or Facebook... My son and daughter do, but I don't like that they put my face.

I am a calm person although when I work passion comes out. At 2023 he asked you to lower prices and end the war, do you live it closely? Honestly we have everything, but I have friends,

restaurant business with 35 people who have worked with me for many years... I explain to my children that life is not what they live, it is another. He is an Italian from the south, from Calabria, living in Milan.

Are there differences or is it a stereotype? I have already lived longer in Milan than in my town.

The mentality is different, it is also spoken differently.

I think that in Lombardy the priority is to work, and in the south everything is calmer. You speak Calabrian, do your children too? I always think in Calabrian.

I speak Calabrian with my father and mother, not with my daughter, but with my son for four or five years, because he likes to spend two or three months in summer in Calabria to be with my father and mother .He was a warrior for Ancelotti, what did he learn to train? Nobody can do things like Carlo.

He has a gift.

It is the third or fourth generation that is training and always has the key to enter the player's head.

He is lucky, a gift, that's why I think he is the best coach in the world.

I have never heard a player speak ill of him.

He also has peace of mind when things are not going well and they are clear about what he has to do.

Now when he gets mad... Are they friends?

He says no... I've had a very close relationship with Carlo, but there was a problem when I signed for Napoli.

He gave me a lot, and I also gave him. You had a lot of temperament as a player, as a coach have you had to tame it? Yes, although sometimes when I see myself I don't like it.

Sometimes when I'm on the bench I look like a dog, always on the move.

I think I have to control myself and I tell myself, but I have blood not horchata.

Paolo Maldini

, who couldn't win it... I don't know... In this state,

Jaap Stam

[Milan's Dutch defender]. What do you expect from the January market? I don't expect anything.

The club knows that we have lost

Nico and Castillejo

I hope for two weeks... The club knows what we have to do, the problem is that they talk about numbers, about financial fair play... I don't expect anything, just that the club understands that we have to make a midfielder.¿ And if it is not possible? If it is not possible, we know that we are having difficulties and that the season is very long, with many games, and I have to look for something else, assess how to put the team together, if I have to do something different... Do you continue without being afraid of anything? What does fear lead to?

It gets you nowhere.

We have to solve it, put the best team on the field and that I and my coaching staff make as few mistakes as possible to give the team confidence.

I have had doubts because if a coach does not have doubts after a game like the one in Cádiz, it is because he is crazy.

We look at tactical improvements and position the team to suffer less. sports sports

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